A proposed change

Unless the 16th Amendment to the Constitution is repealed and a new amendment like the one below is enacted I fear our country will fail, fiscally. The question is having got to this place: have we already failed culturally?

Congress shall pass no law that obligates spending beyond the term of the current Congress and may not intentionally expend revenues greater than were receive in the previous fiscal year because to do so except in the most urgent national emergencies is grievously injurious to the freedom of future generations. In the case of a formal declaration of War the Congress may, by a two thirds vote of the sitting members, dispense itself from this prohibition for costs directly related to the prosecution of a legally declared war.

In order to fund the federal government the Congress of the United States may tax imports and exports, levy tolls on federally maintained roads, bridges, tunnels and transportation infrastructure, charge fees for federal licenses to do interstate business, and tax the individual states of the union at a rate not to exceed 50% of their annual income. The Congress may not levy any direct tax on the citizens of the States as this direct form of taxation is harmful to the individual freedoms which this constitution was adopted to ensure.

A few interesting posts about Pedophilia

http://gkupsidedown.blogspot.com/2010/03/pedophile-priests.html

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303960604575158310656792820.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_opinion


http://english.pravda.ru/society/sex/112790-to_confuse_wood_with_trees-0

The Church is perfect, its members not so much, and it has been our failure in the last half century to police our own ranks that has compromised the Church, and in my opinion placed the whole world in grave danger. What we need now is a period of purification, we need to say to all those who have been compromised among the clergy: confess, repent, and sin no more or else simply leave the Church. And by this we must include all those who are causing scandal by their ways of life, not sexual sins (even when they are not with children!). Ratzinger was right, a smaller purer Church is preferable to a larger church weighed down by so much FILTH.

Kyrie Eleison, Lord Have Mercy on Us.

A Bishop's 10 rules for handling disagreement like a Christian

Dear Sisters and Brothers:

When I began my term as the rector of the major seminary in Detroit a little over 10 years ago, one of the problems I had to help my students deal with was the often-sharp differences of opinion that we find within the Church.

The seminarians looked to me as the pastor of that community to help them navigate through the contentious expression of differing viewpoints. To fulfill my responsibilities as the father of that seminary family I composed what I called “Ten Rules for Handling Disagreement Like a Christian.”

Whether or not the clash of opinions within the Catholic community in the U.S. has grown stronger or weakened over the last decade I couldn’t say; however, I do know that with some frequency we still find ourselves at odds over what we think and where we want to head.

With that in mind, I thought that I, now serving as pastor of the family of the Oakland Diocese, could profitably share these “Ten Rules” with all of you. So, here they are, along with my own brief commentary on each.

1. The Rule of Charity: “Charity is primary.”

This has to be the place to start whenever we disagree with one another: with love. St. Paul said: “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal” (1 Cor. 13:1). No matter how wise my insights or astute my plans, they count for nothing if I do not offer them with love.

Now, that charity is the first and fundamental requirement for all authentic Christian speech does not mean that such speaking can only be weak, but it does mean that whatever is said ought always to be offered respectfully and for the genuine service of others, especially my hearers. In fact, all of St. Paul’s sage advice in the “Hymn to Charity” in 1 Cor. 13 spells out eloquently this “Rule.”

2. The Rule of Publicity: “Think with the mind of the Church.”

This rule is simply a translation of the Latin axiom “Sentire cum Ecclesia.” This means that, when we disagree, the final measure for judging what’s on target and what’s off the mark is what the Church thinks, not, ultimately, what you think or what I think – not private opinion, but what the Church has said to all to know.

This is the reason I call this the “The Rule of Publicity.” The criterion for our deciding our disagreements is not one’s own private opinions, but the mind of the People of God, what the Church thinks.

In order to apply this rule effectively, we need to use a corollary: “Measure everything against the authoritative documents of the Magisterium.”

The logical question to follow any call for us to “think with the mind of the Church” is: How do I know what that is?

The answer is: “Look in the places where the Church has expressed her mind with authority.” Look in the writings of the Councils and the popes, in the Church’s laws, and in the teachings of her Fathers and Doctors. Any survey or poll, no matter how extensive or accurate, if it contradicts the Magisterium, is not the Church’s mind.

3. The Rule of Legitimate Freedom: “What the Church allows is not to be disallowed.”

This rule means that in situations where the Church says that a variety of views or opinions is legitimate, I should not impose my option as a mandate on others. For example: we can receive Holy Communion in the hand or on the tongue. Either one is acceptable.

4. The Rule of Catholic Freedom: “There’s something for everybody, but not everything is for everybody.”

This fourth rule is an extension of the one above. It applies the same sort of respect for diversity to the wider spheres of our common life. This rule is based on the recognition that “It’s a big Church.” God has given gifts of grace in an almost dizzying variety. Some folks are attracted to the Carmelite Third Order, others gather for charismatic prayer. Nobody has to live the Christian life exactly the way I do.

Remember: “Think (and act) with the mind of the Church.” We need to respect every practice or approach that has a legitimate place in the life of the Church, and we cannot make our favorite practice or approach mandatory for others if the Church has not.

5. The Rule of Modesty: “Not all of my causes are God’s causes.”

Yes, it’s true that in many cases we invest our heart’s devotion because that’s what God commands for all his people. But that’s not necessarily so in every instance. Some of my agendas are mine. It’s right to embark on projects with a zealous desire to give God glory, but I have to remember that while it may be his will for me to take this on, there are cases when it’s not his will for everyone else to join me.

6. The Rule of Integrity: “To do evil in order to accomplish good is really to do evil.”

Breaking one of God’s commandments is not the way to advance his Kingdom, ever. If, in the service of Christ, I act in an un-Christian way, I become a highly effective ally of the very forces I set out to combat. (Among those who are big “Star War” fans, this rule is sometimes referred to as the “Darth Vader Axiom.”)

7. The Rule of Realism: “Remember that Satan is eager to corrupt my efforts to build up the Kingdom, and he’s smart enough to figure out a way to do it.

This rule is strong statement about the need for each of us in our disagreements to practice that form of realism, for which the more common name is “humility.” My cause may be right or my view may be true, but I have to watch that their goodness is not corrupted by my infidelity.

8. The Rule of Mystery: “Not all the habits and attitudes which belong to a society governed by a representative democracy are appropriate in the Church.”

In every age there is a tendency – often unconscious – to shape the life of the Church after the pattern of the secular order of the day. In the Middle Ages, the governance of the Church was often configured to the feudal system of the times, sometimes with very harmful consequences. For example, bishops and abbots were identified with the barons of the nobility.

In our own day, we could make a similar sort of mistake: thinking that the responsibility and authority of the Church’s pastors are of the same sort as that of our elected officials. In such mistaken identifications, what is at work is a forgetting that while the Church is, yes, a human reality, she is also a divine reality, a mystery, unlike any other community every known in the history of the world.

The Church is neither a democracy nor a monarchy. She is the Church, the Lord’s own creation, constituted according to his will and plan.

9. The Petrine Rule: “Nobody ever built up the Church by tearing down the pope.”

This rule follows quite logically from the one immediately above. The Holy Father’s leadership is part of the Church’s constitution from Christ. Because the pope is not the sort of democratic leader we are accustomed to in civil society, there is a tendency by some observers to characterize his office as a “throwback” to times that we have surpassed, a “burden” for the Catholic people that we would well be freed from. Not so.

The pastoral care we receive from the Holy Father is a great grace, St. Peter’s own service of his fellow disciples continuing to this very day. A great pope makes us a better Church.

10. The Eschatological Rule: “The victory is assured; my job is to run out the clock with style.”

Christ is risen – truly, body and soul risen and in glory at the Father’s right. He has conquered sin and death and all the forces that threaten us. Whatever is at stake in our trials or conflicts, the certainty of Christ’s victory is not in doubt.

And he promised he would be with us always, until the end of time (cf. Mat. 28:20). He will never leave his Church, and his victory will be ours as long as we abide with him in his Mystical Body.

This rule, of course, is not an excuse for giving less than our full effort to spread the Kingdom; that would be a kind of presumption. However, this rule is a call to remember that there is one Savior, and it’s not you or me. Our mission is to serve the Lord in fidelity and hope, and be ready for him to act, for he surely will.
Source: Bishop's Column, In His Light (September 19, 2005, VOL. 43, NO. 16, Oakland, CA)

Catholicism & Capital Punishment | First Things

Catholicism & Capital Punishment | First Things

Catholics and Health Care

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/10/30/catholic-bishops-urge-parishioners-oppose-abortion-funding-obamas-health-care/

This weekend the Bishops of the United States are beginning a campaign to urge American Catholics to oppose the possibility of abortion funding in the health care bill now before congress. Of course as Catholics we have to do our best to defend the sanctity of life in every arena! However, when eventually tax dollars start to pay for abortions in this country, as I am sure they will one day in the near future--the Bishops will be at least in part to blame.

-They will be at blame because for many years now they have equated the Christian Gospel message of social justice with (soft) socialism.

-They will be at blame because they have ignored the Christian moral principle of subsidiarity, which teaches that true Charity begins with the individual not with the state, because statism is easier than preaching the gospel and treating poverty, illness and old age as problems to fix rather than as opportunities to love seems to have more of a chance of sucess.

-They will be partially to blame because they have (frequently) ignored the principle that as Christians we are morally obligated to obey the laws of the state even if we don't like or agree with them so long as they are not immoral. And that this moral duty extends to the Constitution, a document establishing limited government to defend against statism so as to safe guard freedom of conscious against things like abortion and contraception.

As Christian's we have a moral duty to care for the poorest of the poor and the weakest of the weak. However deferring our obligation to the state does nothing to help individuals grow in holiness through acts of sacrificial love. It nothing to re-enforce the dignity of the human persons who become cogs in a state bureaucracy rather than the little ones that Christ instructs us to care for. And it does nothing to help individuals learn responsibility so that they can maximize their individual potential.

Socialism may (and I stress may) be a legitimate option, but it is also a prudential issue on which Catholics of good will can disagree. Too often the Bishops have come down on one political side of this issue making it sound like socialism is the Catholic way on issue after issue after issue. But if history is any indicator the more power the state gains over and ever widening portion of our lives the more of a possibility there is that the state will begin to use this power to persecute the faithful, to oppose the Gospel, and to violate the dignity of the human person.

The problem with abortion

In the wake of the Tiller killing many people have taken to demonizing the Catholic Church and the pro-life movement. One author, sadly a former priest, claimed that the Church was anti-choice and anti-woman and that it was our hate filled rhetoric that killed Tiller.

The fact of the matter is that Tiller was killed by a man who had a choice. A choice which similarly the Catholic Church and pro-life movement disagrees with. And while I would like to think that even though misguided he did what he did to save babies, I realize that in reality he probably chose his ideology over the value of a life, the same error that many pro-death people have been making for over 40 years.

The Church is not anti-choice, we just realize that to murder a 50 year old doctor or a 5 month old baby in the womb is essentially the same thing.

And she is not anti-woman no more than someone who criticizes the holocaust is anti-German.

The fundamental fact is that murder is wrong. And while Tiller may himself have been guilty of this intrinsic evil, killing someone because of anger, frustration, and ideological hate is also wrong.

I don't want to live in a country where we need to start making decisions based on who is in power, who has the means of pursuasion, about who lives or dies.

And yet if we undermine the basic protection of all human life, that is exactly the type of society we are creating. I think we see it already.

Patrick Madrid, over at his blog, posted this sad mock letter about the direction we are LOGICALLY taking. I encourage you to read this letter and then using the logic of abortion tell me how it does not follow. Sure you can say no one wants that, which is not true as one of the leading abortion advocates, a honest philosopher at Princeton, openly promotes infanticide. But just using logic what basis can we give for who ought not to be killed and who might be - is it public opinion? That is really scary! As is this letter, but it is I think our future if we don't wake up:

January 22, 2023

Dear Mom:

Can you believe it is already the year 2023? I'm still writing '22 on everything! It seems like only yesterday that I was sitting in the first grade and celebrating the change to a new century.

I know we really haven't chatted since Christmas, Mom, and I'm sorry. Anyway, I have some difficult news to share with you and, to be honest, I really didn't want to call or talk about this face to face.

But before I get to that, let me report that Ted just got a big promotion, and I should be up for a hefty raise this year if I keep putting in all those crazy hours. You know how I work at it. (Yes, we're still struggling to pay the bills.)

Little Timmy's been okay at kindergarten, although he complains about going. But then, he wasn't happy about the day-care center either. So what can we do?

He's been a real problem, Mom. He's a good kid, but quite honestly, he's an unfair burden on us at this time in our lives.

Ted and I have talked this through, and we have finally made a choice. Plenty of other families have made the same choice and are really better off today.

Our pastor is supportive of our choice. He pointed out the family is a system, and the demands of one member shouldn't be allowed to ruin the whole. The pastor told us to be prayerful and to consider all the factors as to what is right to make our family work. He says that even though he probably wouldn't do it himself, the choice really is ours. He was kind enough to refer us to a children's clinic near here, so at least that part is easy.

Don't get me wrong, Mom. I'm not an uncaring mother. I do feel sorry for the little guy. I think he heard Ted and me talking about this the other night. I turned and saw him standing at the bottom of the stairs in his PJ's with his little teddy bear that you gave him under his arm, and his eyes were sort of welled up with tears.

Mom, the way he looked at me just about broke my heart, but I honestly believe this is better for Timmy, too. It's just not fair to force him to live in a family that can't give him the time and attention he deserves.

And please, Mom, don't give me the kind of grief that grandma gave you over your abortions. It's the same thing, you know. There's really no difference.

We've told Timmy he's just going in for a "vaccination." Anyway, they say the termination procedure is painless. I guess it's just as well that you haven't seen that much of little Timmy lately.

Please give my love to Dad.

Your daughter.

So what was accomplished?

Liberal Catholics got exactly what they wanted. They are now able to feel good about voting a pro-death canidate because he wants to lessen the need for the holocaust (opps I mean abortion). Barrack Obama understands that the debate over abortion will continue but hopes that we can work together to end poverty and war, and just agree to disagree about slavery (opps I did it again). Hopefully we can remain civil in our debate and accept the fact that people of good will disagree about racism and anti-semitism (I mean abortion and infanticide). They got exactly what they hoped for nice words that make them feel better and help them forget the actions of this president.

And Obama got what he wanted. He got a parade of dissenting priests, spouting Card. Bernadine's discredited seamless garment theory, equating the murder of an innocent to poverty, economics, and prudential judgements about war. He got these priests to accept the language of "lessening the need for abortion," glossing over the fact that this probably means promoting contraception, and that talking about lessening the need for abortion is like talking about lessening the need for murder, or racism, or genocide, as if these things were needed in the first place or we could concede that we don't want to end these intrinsic evils. He got an opportunity to make Catholics feel ok about disobeying the Church. He got the opportunity to paint the Church as divided against itself, and to paint the hierarchy as mean spirited partisans rather than as pastors of souls.

Who wins here? Barrack Hussein Obama.
Who looses? Humanity, and the principled rational debate.

Obama waxes elequent but what we need to ask is one simple question what is he talking about? What are we doing when we abort?
Answer: We are intentionally killing a human life, AKA murdering! The reasons, methods, and situations may mitigate the moral culpability but don't change this fundamental fact.

Barrack Obama supports murder and wants us to accept that people can agree to disagree about the relative value of murder and come together to "solve" other problems. He wants us to lessen the need for murder, rather than to work to end it, because Barrack Obama believes it is good, and sometimes needed, to murder babies both in and out of the womb (this last part is actually a logical position because there really is no difference between a baby inside or outside the womb).

Lessons to be learned:
1) Failure to lead the flock leaves the flock vulnerable to false prophets, wolves in sheeps clothing, and pastors will be held accountable for this failure.
2) The gloves are off, pastoral staffs have a pointed end for a reason.
3) The "Vatican II" approach to church governance is not authentically a fruit of the council and is causing grave scandal.
4) Someone needs to start holding priests accountable for what they teach and do
5) And someone needs to start making difficult decisions about Catholic institutions that are Catholic in name only.
6) We need to teach and articulate that abortion is murder, that support for abortion (let alone funding of it) is support for mass-murder, and that Catholic teachings about policy issues like war, social welfare, economics, etc. (which are applications of fundamental principles but can be debated) are of a different kind than teachings about fundamental moral principles which are always and everywhere valid. Injustice, Murder (three types of which are Abortion, Infanticide, and Genocide), Theft, Racism, Lying, Blasphemy, Adultary, Fornication, Contraception, etc. are always wrong, and for a person to promote one of these makes him unworthy of being honored by any institution that values truth, beauty, and goodness!

Finally, we should learn that in one regard the left is correct:
7) Catholics and Christians need to be more careful about partisanship. The left has correctly precieved an occasional bias toward the Republican party. Just because they are the party of the big tent, and are at least willing to give the pro-life cause a hearing doesn't mean that they are the Catholic or Christian party. Christians must be a prophetic leaven and challenge both parties to repent and believe in the Gospel, or at least to seek the common good in accord with the natural law. Just because a president is 99% for us (read President Bush), if he does not fundamentally agree that all life is sacred with no exceptions (even though this is a politically difficult position) then he has given into the culture of death and cannot be honored by the Church.

Waterboarding

My comment on the story: Torture: Do the ends justify the means?


Before entering seminary I was active in Republican circles in DC and my old spiritual director used to tell me, remember Ron not to confuse the party with the Church.

I think we live in a very divisive and partisan age. Americans no longer share a common culture, i.e. we worship different gods, and as a result our political imaginations and perceptions do not provide an adequate lowest common denominator to move forward with a fruitful debate. Representitive democracy will not long last when we can’t agree on even fundamental principles.

It use to be that killing a baby or hanging a captive man upside down and pouring water down his nose would be consider wrong; the first time, every time, all the time! Sure we were willing to fight an unjust aggressor and even to punish a criminal, but we would never accept the wholesale killing of innocents or the inhuman cruelty of torture. The proof that we have fundamentally changed as a society, and lost something that used to hold us together is in the 8th ammendment to the constitution. VIII. Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. The ammendment prohibits cruelty to the guilty, never mind cruelty to the possibly guilty or to those who “know too much,” are inconvenient, or unpleasant even if they didn’t do anything themselves. And yet whether in the case of abortion or torture this is what we are doing–we are being cruel because we think someone poses a danger to our life, our happiness, our plans.

Whether its safety and security for our nation or the ability to “choose” not to be bothered with a living Child–the God that these positions represent is not the Christian God.

Someone said that this debate is only helping the democrats, maybe that is true, because they have had 40 years to come to grips with the fact that their god is libertine hedonism whereas we are just now beginning that slippery slope.

But unless Catholics and Christians wake up (and also Jews and Muslims and the rest) and realize that apologizing for the Republicans will only enable them to stray further from the path, then we will soon find American a country with two parties that are fundamentally opposed to God.

You want to help the Republicans, and I do, call up your GOP rep and party boss and tell them as much as you are against abortion you are equally against torture. Tell them that torture is unacceptable and that the GOP needs to distance themselves from any and all that defend it. I wish some of my co-religionists had had the integrity to tell the democratic party this when faced with a choice between social justice and abortion back in the 70s. This debate is sapping the vigor from the Republican party, just as moral issues sapped the Democrats for the past 40, and its not going to get better until Republicans come to grips with who they are. The question is, who will they be if they don’t move away from supporting what everyone knows is torture?