“ Misery can only be removed from the world by painless extermination of the miserable.”  a Nazi writer quoted by Robert J. Lifton in The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide

The case of Terri Schiavo has been framed by the media as the battle between the “right to die”  and pro-life groups, with the latter often referred to as “right-wing Christians.” Little attention has been paid to the more than twenty major  isability rights organizations firmly supporting Schiavo’s right to nutrition and hydration. Terri Schindler-Schiavo, a
severely disabled woman, is being starved and dehydrated to death in the name of supposed “dignity.” Polls show that most Americans believe that her death is a private matter and that her removal from a feeding tube— a low-tech, simple and inexpensive device used to feed many sick and disabled people” is a reasonable solution to the conflict between her husband and her parents over her right to life.

The reason for this public support of removal from ordinary sustenance, I believe, is not that most people understand or care about Terri Schiavo. Like many others with disabilities, I believe that the American public, to one degree or another, holds that disabled people are better off dead. To put it in a simpler way, many Americans are bigots. A close examination of the facts of the Schiavo case reveals not a case of difficult decisions but a basic test of this country’s decency.

Our country has learned that we cannot judge people on the basis of minority status, but for some reason we have not erased our prejudice against disability. One insidious form of this bias is to distinguish cognitively disabled persons from persons whose disabilities are “just” physical. Cognitively disabled people are shown a manifest lack of respect in daily life, as well. This has gotten so perturbing to me that when I fly, I try to wear my Harvard t-shirt so I can “pass” as a person without cognitive disability. (I have severe cerebral palsy, the result of being deprived of oxygen at birth. While some people with cerebral palsy do have cognitive disability, my articulation difference and atypical muscle tone are automatically associated with cognitive disability in the minds of some people.)

The result of this disrespect is the devaluation of lives of people like Terri Schiavo. In the Schiavo case and others like it, non-disabled decision makers assert that the disabled person should die because he or she” ordinarily a person who had little or no experience with disability before acquiring one” “would not want to live like this.” In the Schiavo case, the family is forced to argue that Terri should be kept alive because she might “get better” that is, might be able to regain or to communicate her cognitive processes. The mere assertion that disability (particularly cognitive disability, sometimes called “mental retardation’) is present seems to provide ample proof that death is desirable.

Essentially, then, we have arrived at the point where we starve people to death because he or she cannot communicate their experiences to us. What is this but sheer egotism? Regardless of one’s religious beliefs, this is obviously an attempt to play God.

Not Dead Yet, an organization of persons with disabilities who oppose assisted suicide and euthanasia, maintains that the starvation and dehydration of Terri Schiavo will put the lives of thousands of severely disabled children and adults at risk. (The organization takes its name from the scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail in which a plague victim not dying fast enough is hit over the head and carted away after repeatedly insisting he is not dead yet.)

Not Dead Yet exposes important biases in the “right to die” movement, including the fact that as early as 1988, Jack Kevorkian advertised his intention of performing medical experimentation (“hitherto conducted on rats”) on living children with spina bifida, at the same time harvesting their organs for reuse.

Besides being disabled, Schiavo and I have something important in common, that is, someone attempted to terminate my life by removing my endotracheal tube during resuscitation in my first hour of life. This was a quality-of-life decision: I was simply taking too long to breathe on my own, and the person who pulled the tube believed I would be severely disabled if I lived, since lack of oxygen causes cerebral palsy. (I was saved by my family doctor inserting another tube as quickly as possible.) The point of this is not that I ended up at Harvard and Schiavo did not, as some people would undoubtedly conclude. The point is that society already believes to some degree that it is acceptable to murder disabled people.

As Schiavo starves to death, we are entering a world last encountered in Nazi Europe. Prior to the genocide of Jews, Gypsies, and Poles, the Nazis engaged in the mass murder of disabled children and adults, many of whom were taken from their families under the guise of receiving treatment for their disabling conditions. The Nazis believed that killing was the highest form of treatment for disability.

As the opening quote suggests, Nazi doctors believed, or claimed to believe, they were performing humanitarian acts. Doctors were trained to believe that curing society required the elimination of individual patients. This sick twisting of medical ethics led to a sense of fulfillment of duty experienced by Nazi doctors, leading them to a conviction that they were relieving suffering. Not Dead Yet has uncovered the same perverse sense of duty in members of the Hemlock Society, now called End-of-Life Choices. (In 1997, the executive
director of the Hemlock Society suggested that judicial review be used regularly “when it is necessary to hasten the death of an individual whether it be a demented parent, a suffering, severely disabled spouse or a child.” This illustrates that the “right to die” movement favors the imposition of death sentences on disabled people by means of the judicial branch.)

For an overview of what “end-of-life choices” mean for Schiavo, I refer you to the Exit Protocol prepared for her in 2003 by her health care providers (available online at http://www.cst hl.com/050113/sixth.html). In the midst of her starvation, Terri will most likely be treated for “pain or discomfort” and nausea which may arise as the result of the supposedly humane process of bringing about her death. (Remember that Schiavo is not terminally ill.) She may be given morphine for respiratory distress and may experience seizures. This protocol confirms what we have learned from famines and death camps: death by starvation is a horrible death.

This apparently is what it means to have “rights” as a disabled person in America today.

The public conversation about Terri Schiavo has gotten so debased that Steve Otto of the Tampa Tribune notes that one side speaks of ‘an already dead’ woman.  Indeed, consider James Kutkowski, Jordan Ross and Jim Seeber of the University of Mississippi, Oklahoma State University and Northern State University, respectively: they are confident that Terri is already dead.  But no one is more cock-sure than Christopher Hitchens, a man whose comments are so obscene as to forever discredit him as a human-rights advocate for any cause.

“Last week, on the MSNBC-TV show ‘Hardball,’ Hitchens told me that ‘Mrs. Schiavo is dead and has been for some time.’  He also spoke of her ‘nonlife,’ only to contradict himself by saying, ‘I would just give her a morphine injection.’  He did not say why it would be necessary to poison a corpse.  And today, Hitchens wrote of ‘the late and long-dead Terri Schiavo.’

“History has taught that deadly consequences follow when one segment of the human population declares another segment of the human population to be less than human.  At various times in history, American Indians, Jews, African Americans, Asians, the unborn and infants have been classified as subhuman.  Terms like ‘parasites,’ ‘lower animals,’ ‘primitive animals,’ ‘inferior race,’ ‘inferior class of beings,’ ‘untamable, carnivorous animals,’ ‘beasts of burden,’ ‘sicklers,’ ‘transit material,’ ‘raw material,’ ‘anthropological specimens,’ ‘article of property,’ ‘rubbish,’ ‘garbage,’ ‘refuse’ and ‘nonpersons’ have frequently been employed.  To this Hitchens adds, ‘nonlife.’

“Albert Speer, one of Hitler’s henchmen, once explained how it was possible for him to kill so many Jews.  He emphatically denied hating Jews, saying only that ‘I simply depersonalized them.’  Get it Hitchens?” 

When Nelli Gray asked me to be a speaker at the 1996 March for Life convention, I was delighted to accept. Nelli has been out in front of the abortion issue for years and has done as much as anyone in the country to keep this issue before the public. Reflecting on what I would say, I kept coming back to the time when I first gave serious thought to the subject.

Prior to Roe v. Wade, I had not thought much about abortion. However, soon after abortion was legalized in 1973, I began teaching at St. Edwards School in Twin Falls, Idaho. As a third grade teacher, I was asked to teach all subjects, including religion. It was while I was teaching religion that I came to read about abortion and ultimately to form a position on the issue.

As a Catholic, I knew full well what the Church's teachings were on the subject, but as a young graduate student at the time, I wanted to read about all sides of the issue. In the course of doing so, I read about the physical qualities of very young fetuses, the meaning of "unsuccessful" abortions, the contrary positions of Jesse Jackson and a black M.D. from Mississippi, and the consequences of dehumanization. All left a lasting impression on me.

When I read about how soon after conception the organs of the body began to develop, and how the physical qualities that make us human were there from practically the beginning, it seemed plain that the fetus was a child that had not yet been born. To have claimed otherwise struck me as simply dishonest. This being so, it quickly became apparent that the only difference between a fetus and an infant was location, or, put differently, there was no moral difference between feticide and infanticide.

Reading about "unsuccessful" abortions sealed the issue for me even further. An "unsuccessful" abortion, my readings explained, occurred when the baby came out alive. In such cases, doctors and nurses would then try to save the life of the very same baby they said didn't exist just moments before. How the doctors and nurses could live with themselves after all this, I could not understand. It was beyond me how anyone could pretend that abortion wasn't homicide after reading about "unsuccessful" abortions. My students, who at that time were seventh and eighth graders, felt the same way.

In the mid-1970s, Jesse Jackson was still a pro-lifer. So much so that he contended that abortion was a form of genocide against blacks. I remember discussing this with my students, and while I had mixed feelings about Jackson's argument, I felt Jackson's position was far more plausible than the one that was being promoted by another black professional, a doctor from the Deep South.

In a magazine interview, the M.D. (whose name I do not recall) complained that life was difficult for him growing up as a black person in the Mississippi Delta. No doubt he was telling the truth. But then he added an incredible non sequitur: ergo, legalized abortions were necessary.

It struck me as bizarre that a man who was obviously doing quite well in life--despite his "difficult" upbringing--would now recommend to other blacks, as well as everyone else, the merits of abortion. My students, almost all of whom were black or Puerto Rican, and came from equally troubled circumstances, saw little to admire in the idea that they would have been better off had their mothers aborted them (quite obviously, life was not so bad for either them or the good doctor that suicide was preferable to living). To this day, when I hear that unwanted children should never be born, I see the faces of my St. Lucy's students, and wonder how anyone could dare suggest that they would have been better off dead.

Finally, I remember reading how Albert Speer, one of Hitler's henchmen, could justify killing innocent people. After spending some 20 years in Spandau prison, Speer admitted that though he helped kill massive numbers of Jews, he never had anything against them as a people. When I first read this, it didn't make any sense to me. Was he lying after all these years? Then he explained his behavior by saying, "I simply depersonalized them."

For Speer, Jews were less than human and were therefore not worthy of human rights. He could not kill a person, but he could kill a Jew. It began to make sense to me.

When I stepped on an ant, I reasoned, I felt nothing. But would I not feel guilt and remorse if I were to step on a human being, however inadvertently? Surely there was a difference between humans and everything else, and that is why humans must be thought of as human, lest we begin to treat them as non-humans. [For more on this, see the splendid book by William Brennan, Dehumanizing the Vulnerables: When Word Games Take Lives, just published by Loyola University Press.]

Many years have passed since I presented these thoughts to my students at St. Ed's, but nothing has happened to make me change my mind. Yes, abortion is about biology, morality, ethics, philosophy, religion, medicine and law. But it is also about honesty and logic. Unfortunately, these properties are in short supply, and nowhere is this more evident than among those walking around with their advanced degrees.

The pending death of Terri Schiavo, coupled with the Minnesota massacre, are emblematic of our culture of death. 

In Terri’s case, an innocent person is being intentionally starved to death because lawmakers have decided to honor the words of her discredited, morally delinquent husband, preferring to err on the side of death.  In the Minnesota tragedy, nine innocent persons—plus their killer—are dead because school teachers, administrators and counselors decided not to honor the telltale signs that were right before their eyes.  In both cases, insouciance and passivity produced deadly consequences.

Terri’s fate did not land on the laps of Florida lawmakers overnight.  They have had years to address antiquated case law on the subject of euthanasia, but they’ve been too busy contemplating the hidden meaning of hanging chads to do so.  Moreover, one would have thought that following the Elian debacle, these lawmakers might have taken the time to reconsider the wisdom of family law in all its aspects.  But instead they did what they do best—they procrastinated.

Jeff Weise went to school wearing eye makeup and a black trench coat.  He wore combat boots, had chains on his pants and sported black spiky hair.  He wrote stories about zombies, drew pictures of people with bullet holes in their heads, and depicted himself with monster’s teeth.  The self-described loner frequently posted messages on the Internet site of www.nazi.org, and no doubt believed what the Libertarian National Socialist Green Party had to say.  Not only does the site flatly reject Christianity and Judaism, it expressly says, ‘We reject morality in all its forms as unnatural.’

So there you have it.  Legislative lassitude, combined with an increasingly amoral culture, has left death in its wake.

Mention Terri Schiavo to left-wing Christians and feminists and immediately they panic. 

That’s because they find it impossible to think about euthanasia without first thinking about abortion. 

And anything that might jeopardize their precious right to abort a child must be resisted at all cost.  Tragically, as this case has revealed, even when the specter of domestic violence is raised, it is not enough to get the ‘pro-women’ advocates to take Terri’s side.  Consider the following.

Western civilization is shuddering under a tidal wave of activism in favor of same-sex marriage. Here is a careful response to their most compelling arguments.

America is entangled in the most heated battle of the culture wars to date. Many consider it a Waterloo. State supreme courts and city governments, senators and congressmen, community leaders, celebrities, and even clergy all have mounted a powerful offensive in support of gay "marriage." What follows is a point-by-point reply to those who are demanding this revision of civilization.

Same-Sex Marriage and Civil Rights

"We're being denied the same rights as heterosexuals. This is unconstitutional discrimination."

There are two complaints here. First, homosexuals don't have the same legal liberties heterosexuals have. Second, homosexual couples don't have the same legal benefits as married couples.

The first charge is simply false. Any homosexual can marry in any state of the Union and receive every one of the privileges and benefits of state-sanctioned matrimony. He just cannot marry someone of the same sex. These are rights and restrictions all citizens share equally.

I realize that for homosexuals this is a profoundly unsatisfying response, but it is a legitimate one, nonetheless.

Let me illustrate. Smith and Jones both qualify to vote in America where they are citizens. Neither is allowed to vote in France. Jones, however, has no interest in U. S. politics; he's partial to European concerns. Would Jones have a case if he complained, "Smith gets to vote [in California], but I don't get to vote [in France]. That's unequal protection under the law. He has a right I don't have." No, both have the same rights and the same restrictions. There is no legal inequality, only an inequality of desire, but that is not the state's concern.

The marriage licensing law applies to each citizen in the same way; everyone is treated exactly alike. Homosexuals want the right to do something no one, straight or gay, has the right to do: wed someone of the same sex. Denying them that right is not a violation of the equal protection clause.

The second complaint is more substantial. It's true that homosexual couples do not have the same legal benefits as married heterosexuals regarding taxation, family leave, health care, hospital visitation, inheritance, etc. However, no other non-marital relationships between individuals--non-gay brothers, a pair of spinsters, college roommates, fraternity brothers-share those benefits, either. Why should they?

If homosexual couples face "unequal protection" in this area, so does every other pair of unmarried citizens who have deep, loving commitments to each other. Why should gays get preferential treatment just because they are sexually involved?

The government gives special benefits to marriages and not to others for good reason. It's not because they involve long-term, loving, committed relationships. Many others qualify there. It's because they involve children. Inheritance rights flow naturally to progeny. Tax relief for families eases the financial burden children make on paychecks. Insurance policies reflect the unique relationship between a wage earner and his or her dependents (if Mom stays home to care for kids, she--and they--are still covered).¹

These circumstances, inherent to families, simply are not intrinsic to other relationships, as a rule, including homosexual ones. There is no obligation for government to give every human coupling the same entitlements simply to "stabilize" the relationship. The unique benefits of marriage fit its unique purpose. Marriage is not meant to be a shortcut to group insurance rates or tax relief. It's meant to build families.

Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council sums the issue up nicely:

"Gay citizens" already have the same right to marry as anyone else--subject to the same restrictions. No one may marry a close blood relative, a child, a person who is already married, or a person of the same sex. However much those restrictions may disappoint the incestuous, pedophiles, polygamists, and homosexuals, the issue is not discrimination. It is the nature of marriage itself.²

"They said the same thing about interracial marriage."

This challenge has great rhetorical force, but it is a silly objection.

Consider two men, one rich and one poor, seeking to withdraw money from their bank. The rich man is denied because his account is empty. However, on closer inspection, a clerk discovers an error, corrects it, and releases the cash. Next in line, the poor man is denied for the same reason: insufficient funds. "That's the same thing you said about the last guy," he snaps. "Yes," the clerk replies. "We made a mistake with his account, but not with yours. You're broke."

In the same way, it simply is not relevant that the same objection has been used to deny both interracial and homosexual marriage. It's only relevant if the circumstances are the same, regardless of the objection. They are not.

Same-sex marriage and interracial marriage have nothing in common. There is no difference between a black and a white human being because skin color is morally trivial. There is an enormous difference, however, between a man and a woman. Ethnicity has no bearing on marriage. Sex is fundamental to marriage.

This approach won't work to justify polygamous or incestuous unions ("In the past people wouldn't allow interracial marriages, either."). It is equally ineffectual here. The objection may be the same, but the circumstances are entirely different.³

"We shouldn't be denied the freedom to love who we want."

Columnist Ellen Goodman writes, "The state is on shaky ground when it tries to criminalize sexual relations of the consensual living arrangements of adults."⁴ In San Francisco, a giddy newly "married" lesbian celebrates, "Now we're not second-class citizens; now we can have a loving relationship like every other married couple we know."⁵ Another opines, "Anybody who is in love and wants to spend the rest of their life together should be able to do it."⁶ [emphasis added in all]

These remarks reflect a common misconception: Same?sex marriage will secure new liberties for homosexuals that have eluded them thus far. This will not happen because no personal liberty is being denied them. Gay couples can already do everything married people do--express love, set up housekeeping, share home ownership, have sex, raise children, commingle property, receive inheritance,⁷ and spend the rest of their lives together. It's not criminal to do any of these things.

Homosexuals can even have a wedding. Yes, it's done all the time. Entire cottage industries have sprung up from Hollywood to the Big Apple serving the needs--from wedding cakes to honeymoons--of same-sex lovers looking to tie the knot.

Gay marriage grants no new freedom, and denying marriage licenses to homosexuals does not restrict any liberty. Nothing stops anyone--of any age, race, gender, class, or sexual preference--from making lifelong loving commitments to each other, pledging their troth until death do them part. They may lack certain entitlements, but not freedoms.

Denying marriage doesn't restrict anyone. It merely withholds social approval from a lifestyle and set of behaviors that homosexuals have complete freedom to pursue without it. A marriage license doesn't give liberty; it gives respect.

And respect is precisely what homosexual activists long for, as one newly licensed lesbian spouse makes clear: "It was a moving experience after a truly lifelong commitment, to have a government entity say, ?Your relationship is valid and important in the eyes of the law.'"⁸ Another admits, "This is about other people recognizing what we have already recognized with each other for a long time."⁹ And another: "I didn't start out feeling this way, but that piece of paper, it's just so important I can't even put it into words. It's so important to have society support you... . It's about society saying you're recognized as a couple."¹⁰

Ironically, heterosexuals have been living together for years enjoying every liberty of matrimony without the "piece of paper." Suddenly that meaningless piece of paper means everything to homosexuals. Why? Not because it confers liberty, but because it confers legitimacy. Note this telling passage from Time magazine's "Will Gay Marriage be Legal?"

Ultimately, of course, the battle for gay marriage has always been about more than winning the second-driver discount at the Avis counter. In fact, the individual who has done most to push same-sex marriage--a brilliant 43-year-old lawyer-activist named Evan Wolfson--doesn't even have a boyfriend. He and the others who brought the marriage lawsuits of the past decade want nothing less than full social equality, total validation--not just the right to inherit a mother-in-law's Cadillac. As Andrew Sullivan, the (also persistently single) intellectual force behind gay marriage, has written, "Including homosexuals within marriage would be a means of conferring the highest form social approval imaginable."¹¹ [emphasis added]

Same-sex marriage is not about civil rights. It's about validation and social respect. It is a radical attempt at civil engineering using government muscle to strong-arm the people into accommodating a lifestyle many find deeply offensive, contrary to nature, socially destructive, and morally repugnant. Columnist Jeff Jacoby summed it up this way in The Boston Globe:

The marriage radicals... have not been deprived of the right to marry--only of the right to insist that a single-sex union is a "marriage." They cloak their demands in the language of civil rights because it sounds so much better than the truth: They don't want to accept or reject marriage on the same terms that it is available to everyone else. They want it on entirely new terms. They want it to be given a meaning it has never before had, and they prefer that it be done undemocratically--by judicial fiat, for example, or by mayors flouting the law. Whatever else that may be, it isn't civil rights.¹²

The Meaning of Marriage

The controversy about same-sex marriage churns principally around the definition of marriage. Activists deny the traditional view, that marriage is about children. Instead, marriage is an ever changing, socially-constructed institution constantly being redefined by society. There is no essential connection with children. Rather, at the core of the enterprise are two people in love.

"Marriage is about love."

Understandably, love is a predominant theme in discussions about marriage. "As long as people love each other," one person asserted, "it shouldn't matter whether they are the same sex. What's important in marriage is love."¹³

Initially, this seems hard to deny. In our culture, love is often the immediate motivation for marriage. On reflection, though, it's clear that love and marriage don't always go together. In fact, they seldom do.

If marriage were about love, then billions of people in the history of the world who thought they were married were not. Most marriages have been arranged. Love may percolate later, but only as a result of marriage, not the reason for it.

Further, if love were the sine qua non of marriage, no "for better or for worse" promises would be needed at the altar. Vows aren't meant to sustain love; they are meant to sustain the union when love wanes. A pledge keeps a family intact not for love, but for the sake of children.

The state doesn't care if the bride and groom love each other. There are no questions about a couple's affections when granting a license. No proof of passion is required. Why? Because marriage isn't about love.

Yes, love may be the reason some people get married, but it isn't the reason for marriage. It may be a constituent of marriage, but it isn't the purpose of marriage. Something else is.

"Marriage is constantly being redefined."

The definition of marriage has not been in flux in the way people suggest. In fact, marriage itself has not been redefined at all. Because there have been variations on the theme does not mean there has been no theme. From the dawn of civilization marriage has always been between men and women.

There have been changes. Historically some have been denied marriage (e. g. , the young, the genetically aberrant, and interracial couples). Others were allowed to marry more than once, either consecutively (divorce and remarriage), or concurrently (polygamy). Spousal rights have altered and traditions have evolved. But marriage has still been marriage. And spouses have always been male and female.

To say something has changed is to say some core thing has remained the same. When an old curtain is changed into a work smock, or an irresponsible bachelor becomes a conscientious dad, something stays the same, the cloth and the man, in these two cases.

In the midst of these obvious changes in marriage, what feature remains the same? What is the essential core that makes marriage distinct from any other relationship? In spite of the variations, spouses have always been male and female. Why? What is unique about this human pairing?

"Not all marriages have children."

Initially it is easy to resist any suggestion that "marriage" and "family" are essentially connected with "offspring." Clearly, not all families have children. Some marriages are barren, by choice or by design.

This proves nothing, though. Books are written by authors to be read, even if large ones are used as doorstops or discarded ones help ignite campfires. The fact that many lie unread and covered with dust, or piled atop coffee tables for decorative effect doesn't mean they were not destined for higher purpose.

In the same way, the natural tie of marriage to procreation is not nullified because in some individual cases children are not intended or even possible. Marriage still is what it is even if its essential purpose is never actualized. The exceptions prove the rule, they don't nullify it. Marriage is intrinsically about and for children.

Ironically, heterosexuals and homosexuals alike confirmed this while lining up to wed at city halls on Valentines day. "After seven years and the birth of a baby," the L.A. Times reported, "Robert Manzo and Anna Parker decided to make their union official for 9-month-old Kyle, who they believe should have the legal protection that a marriage gives to a family."¹⁴

More than 300 miles away, Kathy Palmer-Lohan stood in line in San Francisco with her partner, Laura, who was seven months pregnant. "We're having kids," Palmer-Lohan said, "and [marriage] gives some formality to the relationship and the family structure.¹⁵

"Marriage is a social construction we can redefine as we please."

What is marriage? There are only two possible kinds of answers to this question: Either marriage and family have a fixed, natural purpose (a natural "teleology") or they do not. If not, marriage is some kind of social construction, an invention of culture like knickers or bow ties, fashions that change with the times. Marriages defined by convention can be anything culture defines them to be. No particular detail is essential.

It is not possible, however, that marriage is a social construction. Here's why.

Columnist Dennis Prager has observed, "Every higher civilization has defined marriage as an institution joining members of the opposite sex."¹⁶ I agree with Prager's position on marriage, though I take exception with one of his words.

I don't think marriage has been defined by cultures. Rather, I think it has been described by them. The difference in terms is significant. If marriage is defined by culture, then it is merely a construction that culture is free to change when it desires. The definition may have been stable for millennia, yet it is still a convention and therefore subject to alteration. This is, in fact, the argument of the those in favor of gay marriage.

The truth is, it is not culture that constructs marriages or the families that marriages begin. Rather, it is the other way around: Marriage and family construct culture. As the building blocks of civilization, families are logically prior to society as the parts are prior to the whole. Bricks aren't the result of the building because the building is made up of bricks. You must have the first before you can get the second.

Societies are large groups of families. Since families are constituent of culture, cultures cannot define them. They merely observe their parts, as it were, and acknowledge what they have discovered. Society then enacts laws not to create marriage and families according to arbitrary convention, but to protect that which already exists, being essential to the whole.

Why has civilization always characterized families as a union of men and women? Because men and women are the natural source of the children that allow civilized culture to persist. This is the only understanding that makes sense of the definition, structure, legitimacy, identity, and government entitlements of marriage. This alone answers our question, "What is marriage?"

Marriage begins a family. Families are the building blocks of cultures. Families--and therefore marriages--are logically prior to culture.

If the definition of marriage is established by nature, then we have no liberty to redefine it. In fact, marriage itself wouldn't change at all even if we did. Philosopher Francis Beckwith has wryly observed, "Just because you can eat an ashtray doesn't make it food." Linguistic tricks can't change what nature has already determined something to be. Neither ashtrays nor same-sex marriage provide the nourishment intended by food or families, respectively.

The fact that same-sex couples can legally adopt changes nothing. This, too, subverts the purpose of marriage by robbing families (and children) of a vital ingredient: mothers and fathers. By licensing same-sex marriage, society declares by law that two men or two women are equally suited to raise a child, that mothers and fathers contribute nothing unique to healthy child-rearing. This is self-evidently false. Moms and dads are not interchangeable.¹⁷

Marriage begins a family. The purpose of family is to produce the next generation. Therefore, family is designed by nature for children. This description alone is consistent with our deepest intuitions, which is why every culture since the birth of time has recognized this. No other characterization fits what societies have been doing for millennia.

Families may fail to produce children, either by choice or by accident, but they are about children, nonetheless. That's why marriages have always been between men and women; they are the only ones, in the natural state, who have kids.

Government has no interest in affirming any other kind of relationship. It privileges and sustains marriage in order to protect the future of civilization.

Same-sex marriage is radically revisionist. It severs family from its roots, eviscerates marriage of any normative content, and robs children of a mother and a father. This must not happen.

Homosexuality is broadly tolerated in this country. Gays are allowed to pursue their "lifestyles" without reprisal, even to the point of forming committed, monogamous unions. They may not be universally respected or admired, but they have the liberty to live as they choose. This is all they have the right to demand.

A "Disability Vendetta" Surfaces in Hollywood

HOLLYWOOD, California, MARCH 19, 2005

The recent Academy Awards saw the triumph of two films that promote a favorable view of euthanasia. "Million Dollar Baby," a story about a female boxer severely wounded in a bout, won four of the top Oscars, including that of best director for Clint Eastwood. Hilary Swank won for best actress for her portrayal of Maggie Fitzgerald, who ends up prostrated with a spinal injury. Her pleas to be helped in seeking release from suffering by death are fulfilled.

The Oscar for best foreign film went to "The Sea Inside," which depicts the real-life case of Spaniard Ramón Sampedro, who ended up a quadriplegic after a diving accident. His requests to put an end to his life met were turned down after legal battles, but he committed suicide by drinking a cyanide-laced mixture.

The awards won by the films have focused attention on the situation of severely injured or handicapped people, with many protesting that the cinematic versions so popular in Hollywood are both dangerous and demeaning.

The British Telegraph newspaper reported Jan. 23 that the National Spinal Cord Injury Association, one of America's most respected organizations for disabled people, accused Eastwood of a "disability vendetta."

The association described the concluding scene of "Million Dollar Baby" as a "brilliantly executed attack on life after a spinal cord injury." Protesters in Chicago from the organization Not Dead Yet claimed that the film "promotes the killing of disabled people as the solution to the 'problem' of disability."

Matthew Eppinette, from the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity, pointed out in a commentary published by the organization Feb. 28 that the film portrays humans as if they were mere animals to be put out of their suffering.

On the contrary, he stated, "Euthanasia, suicide and assisted suicide are wrong because they deliberately end a human life -- a life that bears the image of God." Moreover, even being a quadriplegic does not prevent us from deepening our relationship with God.

People in this situation certainly suffer greatly, Eppinette pointed out. But, as the example of Christopher Reeve amply demonstrated, "even the most severely paralyzed can live a rich and vibrant life, given proper care and support."

Real-life testimonies

In fact, many people in this situation have published testimonies affirming their will to live. Daniel Timmons, writing in Canada's National Post last Oct. 8, described how he has lost much of the use of his hands and legs. He suffers from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. "Every day is not only a difficult physical struggle, but also a torturous psychological one," he explained.

"From my own experience, it's a challenge to see the purpose of living when your body declines so rapidly and fear fills your mind," stated Timmons. Nevertheless, he opposes assisted suicide, noting that it would be more accurate to call it assisted killing.

Our dignity does not depend on existing without pain, he added. "If people's suffering prevents them from seeing the value of living, they deserve our pity. But no one should deliberately act to kill them."

The case of another ALS sufferer, Jules Lodish, was described in the New York Times last Nov. 7. Reporters visited his Bethesda, Maryland, home when he had already lived for 10 years with the disease. By now almost every muscle in Lodish's body is paralyzed and he types into a computer by twitching the muscles of his cheek.

Asked how he feels about his life, Lodish responded: "I still look forward to every day."

Linda Ganzini, a professor of psychiatry at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, told the New York Times that many patients have deep religious beliefs that help sustain them, and they are able "to find hope in the future, find meaning and tolerate the daily ongoing losses that they are experiencing."

Living flawed lives

From London, Jane Campbell, a commissioner for the Disability Rights Commission, spoke of her experience suffering from spinal muscular atrophy. Writing in the Times on Dec. 2, she explained what happened when in January 2004 she was admitted to hospital with severe pneumonia.

The consultant who was treating her commented that if she were to go into respiratory failure "he assumed that I would not want to be resuscitated on a ventilator." She replied: "Of course I would want to be ventilated." The same scenario was repeated the following day with another consultant, and Campbell feared for her life. Scared that the doctors would let her die, she refused to sleep for the next 48 hours.

"This incident, and similar ones that come to the attention of the Disability Rights Commission, reflect society's view that people such as myself live flawed and unsustainable lives and that death is preferable to living with a severe impairment," she explained in the article.

She also noted that the concept of terminal illness is not easy to define. More than a quarter of the doctors who authorize assisted deaths in Oregon said that they were not confident they could give an accurate six-month prognosis.

Another recent testimony came from Spain, where a champion of the Athens Para-Olympics, José Javier Curto, described to the newspaper La Razón that after 11 years of living in a wheelchair, due to a muscular disease, he is firmly opposed to euthanasia.

Our lives belong to God, he said, with or without suffering. Moreover, he affirmed that the case of Ramón Sampedro was not typical. In fact, he calculated that the great majority of paralyzed want to keep on living and are opposed to euthanasia.

Another case from England is that of Baroness Chapman of Leeds, reported in the Telegraph on Feb. 6. Baroness Chapman sits in the House of Lords, where the British government's Mental Capacity Bill at the time of writing was being debated. The bill, it is argued, would open the doors to euthanasia.

The baroness was born with brittle bone disease. At her birth, the doctors maintained she would be unable to communicate and would have no noticeable mental function. She took her seat in the Lords last October, and in her maiden speech condemned the Mental Capacity Bill, saying, "If this bill had been passed 43 years ago, I would not be here."

After a few months of her birth in 1961 she said the doctors sent her home, saying there was nothing more they could do for her. "They sent me home to die," she said, "and I'm still waiting."

Born with 50 bone fractures, she has suffered 600 fractures in all, and at only 2 feet 9 inches tall she has had to overcome serious obstacles. Yet, "I think that in any situation a person should be given every chance to survive," she argued.

True compassion

In a speech Nov. 12, John Paul II outlined the ethical principles that should guide medical treatment. "Medicine is always at the service of life," he told participants in the International Conference of the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers.

And when treatment cannot overcome a serious disease, then efforts should be directed to the alleviation of suffering. In every case it is important to remember "the inalienable dignity of every human being, even in the extreme conditions of terminal illness," the Pope said.

Euthanasia can be motivated by sentiments of compassion, or by a false idea of preserving dignity. But instead of relieving suffering it just eliminates the person, the Holy Father pointed out. A lesson Hollywood needs to learn.

The Enneagram is alleged to be a 2000 year old Sufi system of personality types from Islamic mystics who lived before the time of Christ.

The Enneagram is a circle, meant to symbolise the Cosmos and the "one-ness": this comes from a monist perspective. The Sufis are monists believing that we are all one with each other and with the universe and at the same time pantheists believing that the universe is god. So that's why they're not highly regarded in Islam, because they're kind of Heterodox.

Inside the circle is a triangle, and it connects up the points of the 9, the 3 and the 6; and it symbolises God. We should notice right away that it's God inside the cosmos, not the cosmos inside God.

There's another figure that is 6 sided and it connects from the I to the 4, 4 to the 2, 2 to the 8, 8 to the 5, 5 to the 7 and the 7 back to the I again. And there you have your Enneagram. (Ennea is Greek for "nine").

It is claimed that the Enneagram is a system revealing nine personality types and it is used in the various workshops and taught in seminaries.

This 'typing' system, and its 'Sufi' origins, are quite problematic

First of all: It cannot be a 2000 year old Sufi system. That is absolute nonsense. Sufism is part of Islam. Islam is from the 7th century AD. Sufism is from the 10th Century AD. How can the Sufis invent something 1000 years before they exist?

Secondly: As the Enneagram proponents pointed out, it is based on the decimal point to form these 2 figures inside the circle. The decimal point was not invented until the late 14th, more likely the 15th century AD. How can something based on the decimal point exist before the decimal point was invented?

Where then did the Enneagram come from?

The earliest evidence that we have for the existence of the Enneagram is around 1900 AD. It was brought in by a man named George Ilych Gurdjieff from Georgia. He was half Armenian, half Greek, and was a seminarian for some years as a young boy; by age 13, he left the seminary in pursuit of the occult. He became heavily involved in the occult and the pursuit of it, travelling around the Mediterranean, Egypt, India, Tibet, until he came across a group of Sufis who lived in Central Asia.

He learned the Enneagram from them. Originally, the Enneagram had been used in Central Asia for fortune telling through numerology, hence the importance of the decimal points.

The Sufis picked it up and used it as a symbol of the 9 stages of enlightenment: You move from your "ego" into your essence. What do they mean by essence? Your essence is that same being within you that has the same image as God. So your inner being has the same divine nature as God has. So it's a very pantheistic and monist system. But it's through very rigorous cleansing yourself of your ego and getting into your essence.

Gurdjieff also came across a spirit that he used to get in contact with called "the pillar of time". And he came from Central Asia to Moscow a millionaire, making a million dollars through shady techniques, and made more money selling Persian rugs.

He eventually ended up in Paris where he taught the Enneagram — again as a symbol of the 9 stages of getting to your essence and to your divine interior life. That was his goal.

Nothing of personality types. Nothing. None of his students described personality types. People like Piotto Dimetri Ouspensky, a mathematician who worked with him, and worked a lot with the mathematics, and the planets and the colours and notes. All that stuff is in their books, but nothing on personalities.

When I took the Enneagram, we were told this myth of it being 2000 years old, or even 4000 years old, and so on. However, I fortunately came across other information, and I'll give you some details.

First of all you have Don Riso, an ex-Jesuit, who studied the Enneagram from the same man that taught me, Bob Ochs. Also, Oscar Ichazo, and Claudio Naranjo. These are going to be key characters.

Don Riso is the head of the Enneagram research and study — and I use the term 'research' very loosely — in New York city. Claudio Naranjo is a psychologist from the Esselin Institute, in California, which is a pretty New Age, humanistic psychology mixed bag, centre, on the Coast of California. As a matter of fact, Esselin got so bad one year they had to close down the dormitories because they had so many students committing suicide. Not really the pinnacle of mental health if you ask me. But Claudio Naranjo teaches at Esselin.

These two tell the same story. That Oscar Ichazo invented the Enneagram. By the way I am not dealing with any of the enemies of the Enneagram, all of these are Enneagram enthusiasts. I am only using the Enneagram teachers, inventors and enthusiasts for my own source.

In one of Don Riso's books, he said that Oscar Ichazo, a Chilean occultist, is in contact with spirits like Metatron, the chief of the Archangels. I said wait a minute. Whose side is that Archangel on? I don't think it's St. Michael's.

Oscar Ichazo claims to have the source of all grace on planet earth today. All grace on the earth comes through Ichazo. He is in contact with all the ascended masters and is himself an ascended master. He was given the Enneagram personality types by his spirit, Metatron. Metatron told him to take the Enneagram — just as a drawing without any names on it — and on the Enneagram place the capital sins.

Wait a minute-how many capital sins are there? 7, so he didn't have enough, so he made up 2 more. For No. 3, appropriately enough, he added the capital sin of "deceit". Then for the No. 6 he added "cowardice". He put the other capital sins-I Anger, 2 Pride, 4 Envy, 5 Avarice 7 Gluttony, 8 Lust, and then of course, indolence is sloth. So he put the 7 capital sins plus deceit and cowardice on the points, and then gave them these names of ego-flattery etc. And that's all that he had. That's all that Ichazo had from the spirit.

Claudio Naranjo, also a Chilean, came down to Chile on a home visit from America. He met Ichazo and said, "I wasn't impressed with Ichazo when I first met him. But when I sat and meditated in his presence, I felt his power and I accepted him as a teacher. I became very fascinated with his Enneagram".

Naranjo took the personal characteristics from Karen Home's psychology system, and he put them on the Enneagram associated with each type. Naranjo added descriptions for each type. He also took the Freudian defence mechanisms and put one around for each type. Together, Ichazo and Naranjo taught a course in the Enneagram, around 1969, to a group of Americans in Chile, right on the border of Chile and Peru.

Naranjo went back to Esselin and taught a course on the Enneagram at Esselin, to people like Helen Palmer, Fr. Robert Ochs and a number of other people.

Bob Ochs, after that course, came and taught it at our theologate, to people like Pat O'Leary from Cleveland, Colly Moloney in Canada, and later on, Gerry Hare who taught Richard Rohr. And I, who'd also taught Richard Rohr the Enneagram (before Gerry Hare taught him). We began to teach the Enneagram course, and it has spread from these people in that course at the Jesuit School of Theology. Don Riso, a Jesuit who'd studied under Ochs, has also been spreading it.

Today, there is not a single Jesuit in my province, or the next province over, teaching the Enneagram: there is not a single Jesuit left in the Society teaching the Enneagram. Either they've stopped teaching the Enneagram, or they've left the Society. Not a single one is left.

Pat O'Leary drove our retreat centre in Cleveland into the red so far that it went bankrupt. He was giving 52 Enneagram seminars a year at this place-plus going out to other places to give Enneagram seminars, and he is still driving it into the ground. Same thing has happened at the retreat house in Western Massachussetts and another one on the coast run by the Dominicans-two Dominicans, a priest and a nun, on full time Enneagram work. It runs them out of business. It's something that people in your dioceses better pay attention to.

Critiques

I have mentioned all this in terms of its roots, to demythologise the absolute nonsensical myth of it being a 2000 year old Sufi system. That is untrue. It's less than 30 years old. I am not trying to say, I don't intend to say in any way that the Catholic teachers of the Enneagram are promoting pantheism; they don't know its pantheistic roots; they don't know about its occultic roots; they don't know that it came from spirit channelling; they don't know that it was originally a form of fortune-telling. They haven't got a clue of that. They all believe the old myth-or the not so old myth-the 30 year old myth of it being an ancient system. I am not accusing them of any of that sort of thing at all. My concern is to expose its roots, and then raise up these six questions.

The first question is: How do we know that the core of characterological structure is one capital sin? That's the assumption of the Enneagram. What evidence do we have that the core of each characterological structure is one capital sin? I don't brag about this. It's simply a fact —1 commit more than one of the capital sins. Sometimes I make the rounds. And to focus just on one capital sin is a mistake. This was one of the problems I saw with the Enneagram when I used it, and with other people using it. You just focus on your one sin, and not the other capital sins that you commit. I don't think that that's legitimate. What evidence do we have that there's one capital sin at the core of your personality? Except Oscar Ichazo and his spirit Metatron said so.

Secondly: How do we know that there are only 9 personality types? Except Oscar Ichazo and his spirit said so. Remember, he had to force the capital sins to fit into the Enneagram by making up 2 more. Richard Rohr — maybe you've heard about him — has tapes on the Enneagram, and there he just waxes eloquently about how deep and insightful these Sufis are. We in the Western tradition only have 7 capital sins, they have 9. Richard, that's not the way it works. The guy had to force the capital sins into the system. What evidence do we have that that is true — except Ichazo and his spirit said so? That's not good enough.

Thirdly, how do we know that these are the nine capital sins or types except Oscar Ichazo and his spirit Metatron said so?

Fourthly, how do we know that the descriptions for each one of these types is accurate and true except Claudio Naranjo said so? There's no other evidence. It's never been tested.

Fifthly, and I think a very important point, is that the system also has within it these arrows on the lines, and the arrows point in a certain direction.

The direction of getting worse, so that a 7 gets worse by becoming like an angry I. The angry I gets worse by becoming a melancholic envious type. The 4 gets worse by becoming like a 2, full of flattery, and the 2 gets worse by becoming vengeful like the 8 and the 8 gets worse by becoming stingy like the 5, and so on. How do you know that that's true?

More importantly, to get better, according to the Enneagram, you have to go against the arrow. So to improve the I has to become like the 7, the 7 like the 5, the 5 like the 8, and so on.

How do we know that's true? Except Ichazo and Naranjo said so. There's no evidence for that. Goofy advice is being given in spiritual direction on the basis of this.

One nun was told by another nun: "What you need to do because you're a number 2 on the Enneagram, is move out of your convent, get yourself a new apartment and buy a cat, and learn to become creatively self-centred." Why? Because each one of these Enneagram numbers also has its own totem animal, and the totem of a 2 is a cat. You know, I don't remember that part of the sermon on the Mount, where Our Lord told us to be creatively self-centred, or uncreatively self-centred? This is nonsense.

When I was in Singapore I read three more books on the Enneagram by some of its newer proponents. One was by a nun from the Philippines who still has a lot of the old sufi lingo with it. She obviously got the material fairly close to the source, and she's still talking a lot of this sufi nonsense. The other one by a Benedictine from Chicago, has a book on how to 'type' the people, and she has another book on spiritual direction. In her book on spiritual direction Jesus Christ is mentioned once in the whole book! God is mentioned 7 times in the whole book! Now what is she directing these people towards? One of the examples she uses has a woman who says: "Well, Michael and I began to act out sexually, and at first I felt this guilt. But I realised God doesn't give me this guilt God just loves us so unconditionally. It's the guilt I feel because my mother would not approve, and so I had to learn to overcome my mother's lack of approval." The nun who wrote the book never commented. She was happy the woman came to 'enlightenment'. This is part of the perversity of the Enneagram.

Now I am glad that this lady's mother is opposed to mortal sins like adultery or fornication. That's good! And I do think that God Our Lord has a problem with committing adultery or fornication. He made His hit parade of 10 most favourite Commandments. It's something that Christ did. From the Sermon of the Mount, all the way to the end of Revelation we see Him mentioning you can't go to heaven —it is a matter of fact it's Christ who says that if you do these sins you'll go to hell. The apostles are more reticent, they simply say you won't go to heaven, but Christ did say 'you're gonna go to Gehenna if you commit these sins', and that's never brought up because it's not a matter of right and wrong, only enlightenment matters. That's the real issue.

The sixth question is of crucial importance: Is it true or not?

There is not a single study done by any professionals checking on the truth of the Enneagram system. I'll bet that if it is studied it'll be shown to be phoney-baloney. None of these other five questions have been examined or asked yet. There are no criteria for the Enneagram or for its teachers.

Liberalism never gives battle on solid ground; it knows too well that in a discussion of principles it must meet with irretrievable defeat. It prefers tactics of recrimination and, under the sting of a just whipping, whiningly accuses Ultramontane Catholics of lack of charity in their polemics. This is also the ground which certain Catholics, tainted with Liberalism, are in the habit of taking. Let’s see what is to be said on this score.

We Conservative Catholics, on this point as on all others, have reason on our side; whereas, Liberals have only its shadow. In the first place, a Catholic can handle his Liberal adversary openly, if such he actually is [i.e., openly Liberal]; no one can doubt this. If an author or a journalist makes open profession of Liberalism and does not conceal his Liberal predilections, what injury can be done him in calling him a Liberal? Si palam res est, repetitio injuria non est: "To say what everybody knows is no injury." With much stronger reason, to say of our neighbor what he every instant says of himself cannot justly offend. And yet, how many Liberals, especially those of the easy-going and moderate type, regard the expressions "Liberal" and "friend of Liberals" which Catholic adversaries apply to them, as offensive and uncharitable!

Granting that Liberalism is a bad thing, to call the public defenders and professors of Liberalism bad is no want of charity.

The law of justice, potent in all ages, can be applied in this case. The Catholics of today are no innovators in this respect. We are simply holding to the constant practice of antiquity. The propagators and abettors of heresy, as well as its authors, have at all times been called heretics.

As the Church has always considered heresy a very grave evil, so has she always called its adherents bad and perverted. Run over the list of ecclesiastical writers and you will then see how the Apostles treated the first heretics, how the Fathers and modern controversialists and the Church herself in her official language has pursued them. There is then no sin against charity in calling evil evil; its authors abettors and its disciples bad; all its acts, words, and writings iniquitous, wicked, malicious. In short, the wolf has always been called the wolf; and in so calling it, no one ever has believed that wrong was done to the flock and the shepherd.

If the propagation of good and the necessity of combating evil require the employment of terms somewhat harsh against error and its supporters, this usage is certainly not against charity. This is a corollary or consequence of the principle we have just demonstrated. We must render evil odious and detestable. We cannot attain this result without pointing out the dangers of evil, without showing how and why it is odious, detestable and contemptible. Christian oratory of all ages has ever employed against impiety the most vigorous and emphatic rhetoric in the arsenal of human speech. In the writings of the great athletes of Christianity, the usage of irony, imprecation, execration and of the most crushing epithets is continual. Hence the only law is the opportunity and the truth.

But there is another justification for such usage. Popular propagation and apologetics cannot pre-serve elegant and constrained academic forms. In order to convince the people, we must speak to their heart and their imagination, which can only be touched by ardent, brilliant, and impassioned language. To be impassioned is not to be reprehensible-when our heat is the holy ardor of truth.

The supposed violence of modern Ultramontane journalism not only falls short of Liberal journalism, but is amply justified by every page of the works of our great Catholic polemists of other epochs. This is easily verified. St. John the Baptist calls the pharisees a "race of vipers"; Jesus Christ, Our Divine Saviour, hurls at them the epithets "hypocrites, whitened sepulchres, a perverse and adulterous generation," without thinking for this reason that He sullies the sanctity of His benevolent speech. St. Paul criticizes the schismatic Cretians as "always liars, evil beasts, slothful bellies." The same Apostle calls Elymas the magician a "Seducer, full of guile and deceit, a child of the devil, an enemy of all justice."

If we open the Fathers, we find the same vigor-ous castigation of heresy and heretics. St. Jerome, arguing against Vigilantius, casts in his face his former occupation of saloon-keeper: "From your infancy," he says to him, "you have learned other things than theology and betaken yourself to other pursuits. To verify at the same time the value of your money accounts and the value of Scriptural texts, to sample wines and grasp the meaning of the prophets and apostles are certainly not occupations which the same man can accomplish with credit." On another occasion, attacking the same Vigilantius, who denied the excellence of virginity and of fasting, St. Jerome, with his usual sprightliness, asks him if he spoke thus "in order not to diminish the receipts of his saloon?" Heavens! what an outcry would be raised if one of our Ultramontane controversialists were to write against a Liberal critic or heretic of our own day in this fashion!

What shall we say of St. John Chrysostom? Is his famous invective against Eutropius not comparable, in its personal and aggressive character, to the cruel invectives of Cicero against Catiline and against Verres! The gentle St. Bernard did not honey his words when he attacked the enemies of the Faith. Addressing Arnold of Brescia, the great Liberal agitator of his times, he calls him in all his letters, "seducer, vase of injuries, scorpion, cruel wolf".

The pacific St. Thomas of Acquin [Aquinas] forgets the calm of his cold syllogisms when he hurls his violent apostrophe against William of St. Amour and his disciples: "Enemies of God" he cries out, "ministers of the devil, members of antichrist, ignorami, perverts, reprobates!" Never did the illustrious Louis Veuillot speak so boldly. The seraphic St. Bonaventure, so full of sweetness, overwhelms his adversary Gerard with such epithets as "impudent, calumniator, spirit of malice, impious, shameless, ignorant, impostor, malefactor, perfidious, ingrate!" Did St. Francis de Sales, so delicately exquisite and tender, ever purr softly over the heretics of his age and country? He pardoned their injuries, heaped benefits on them even to the point of saving the lives of those who sought to take his, but with the enemies of the Faith he preserved neither moderation nor consideration. Asked by a Catholic, who desired to know if it were permissible to speak evil of a heretic who propagated false doctrines, he replied:

"Yes, you can, on the condition that you adhere to the exact truth, to what you know of his bad conduct, presenting that which is doubtful as doubtful, according to the degree of doubt which you may have in this regard." In his Introduction to the Devout Life, that precious and popular work, he expresses himself again: "If the declared enemies of God and of the Church ought to be blamed and censured with all possible vigor, charity obliges us to cry wolf when the wolf slips into the midst of the flock and in every way and place we may meet him."

But enough. What the greatest Catholic polemists and Saints have done is assuredly a fair example for even the humblest defenders of the Faith. Modern Ultramontanism has never yet surpassed the vigor of their castigation of heresy and heretics. Charity forbids us to do unto another what we would not reasonably have them do unto ourselves. Mark the adverb reasonably; it includes the entire substance of the question.

The essential difference between ourselves and the Liberals on this subject consists in this, that they look upon the apostles of error as free citizens, simply exercising their full right to think as they please on matters of religion. We, on the contrary, see in them the declared enemies of the Faith, which we are obligated to defend. We do not see in their errors simply free opinions, but culpable and formal heresies, as the law of God teaches us they are. By virtue of the assumed freedom of their own opinions, the Liberals are bound not only to tolerate but even to respect ours; for since freedom of opinion is, in their eyes, the most cardinal of virtues, no matter what the opinion be, they are bound to respect it as the expression of man's rational freedom. It is not what is thought, but the mere thinking that constitutes the standard of excellence with them. To acknowledge God or deny Him is equally rational by the standard of Liberalism, and Liberalism is grossly inconsistent with itself when it seeks to combat Catholic truths, in the holding of which there is as much exercise of rational freedom, in the Liberal sense, as in rejecting them. But our Catholic standpoint is absolute; there is but one truth, in which there is no room for opposition or contradiction. To deny that truth is unreasonable; it is to put falsehood on the level with truth. This is the folly and sin of Liberalism. To denounce this sin and folly is a duty and a virtue. With reason, therefore, does a great Catholic historian say to the enemies of Catholicity: "You make your-selves infamous by your actions, and I will endeavor to cover you with that infamy by my writings." In this same way the law of the Twelve Tables of the ancient Romans ordained to the virile generations of early Rome: Adversus bostem aeterna auctoritas esto, which may be rendered: "To the enemy no quarter."

I have been invited to appear on the "Faith Under Fire" television program that airs on PAX-TV and will be broadcast on Saturday, March 26, 2005.

According to the producer, the program is a "bold and edgy hour-long primetime series...in the style of Crossfire, Hardball and Larry King Live. It takes an unflinching look at the most controversial issues involving religion, spirituality and morality and how these issues influence and change our lives."

It is hosted by former Chicago Tribune legal editor and renowned author Lee Strobel. Appearing on the program with me, oestensibly to take an opposing point of view, is Paul Maier from Western Michigan University, a history professor who "questions the hard facts and history of the Shroud."

Check your local programming guide for the exact times and a segment titled, "Reexamining the Shroud." I hope Mr. Maier has seen the news of Ray Rogers' paper before we tape the program in February, or he might be in for something of a surprise.

The press has grown so omnipresent nowadays that there is no escape from it. So it is important to know exactly how to steer our course amidst the many perils that beset Catholics on this score. How are we to distinguish between journals or blogs that merit or do not merit our confidence? Or rather, what kind of journals or blogs ought to inspire us with very little and what with no confidence? In other words, with all these thousands of new electronic and internet related web sites, journals, blogs etc. How can we sort out the loyal Catholic sites, from the disloyal, misguided, and sometimes down right demonic ones?

In the first place, should be clear that journals (or blogs etc.) that boast of their Liberalism cannot claim our confidence in matters that Liberalism touches on. These are precisely the enemies against whom we have to be on guard, against .  They are whom we have to wage perpetual war against.

This point then is outside of our consideration. All those who in our present day claim the to be Liberal, in the specific sense in which we always use the term, become our declared enemies and the enemies of the Church of God.

But there is another class of journals less prompt to unmask and proclaim themselves, who love to live amidst ambiguities in an undefined and indefinite region of compromise. They declare themselves Catholic and tell of  how they detest and abhor what Liberalism has done to God’s Church, at least if we credit their words. These journals are generally known as Liberal Catholic. This is the class which we should especially mistrust, and we should not permit ourselves to be duped by its pretended concern. When we find journals, Catholic in name and in profession, strongly leaning to the side of compromise and seeking to placate the enemy by concessions, we may rest assured that they are being drawn down into the Liberal sewer pipe, in the current which is always too strong for such weak swimmers. He who places himself in the vortex of a maelstrom is sure in the end to be engulfed in it. The logic of the situation brings the inevitable conclusion.

The Liberal current is easier to follow. It is largely made up of proselytes and readily attracts the self-lovers and the weak. The true Catholic current is apparently more difficult; it has fewer friends and requires us constantly to fight against the stream, to stem the tide of perverse ideas and corrupt passions. Not unlike our little swimming friend Salmo who swims against the river’s current to reach his potential, even though only death awaits him at the conclusion of his arduous yet absolutely necessary journey. With the uncertain, the vacillating and the unwary, the Liberal current easily prevails and sweeps them away in its fatal embrace. There is no room, whatever, for confidence in the Liberal Catholic press, especially in cases where it is difficult to form a judgment.

Moreover, in such cases, its policy of compromise and conciliation hampers it from forming any decisive or absolute judgment, for the simple reason that its judgment has nothing decisive or radical in it; on the contrary, it is always weighted down with a preponderant inclination towards the expedient. Opportunism is its guiding star. The truly Catholic press is altogether Catholic, that is to say, it defends Catholic doctrine in all its principles and applications; it opposes all false teaching (known as such) always and entirely, diametrically opposed, as St. Ignatius says in that golden book of his exercises. Arrayed with unceasing vigilance against error, it places itself on the frontier, always face-to-face with the enemy. It never bivouacs with the hostile forces, as the ever compromising press loves to do.

Its opposition is definite and determined; it is not simply opposed to certain undeniable maneuvers of the foe, letting others escape its vigilance, but watches, guards, and resists at every point. We must everywhere presents an unbroken front to evil, for evil is evil in everything, even in the good which, by chance, may accompany it.

Let me make an observation to explain my last point, which may seem startling to some, and at the same time explain a difficulty entertained by not a few.

Bad journals (I include doctrinally unsound journals under this heading) sometimes contain something good.

What are we to think of the good thus imbedded within the bad in them? We must think that the good in them does not prevent them from being bad, if their doctrine or their character is intrinsically bad.

In most cases this good is a mere artifice to recommend, or at least disguise, what in itself is essentially bad. Some accidentally good qualities do not take away the bad character of a bad man. An assassin and a thief are not good because they sometimes say a prayer or give alms to a beggar. They are bad in spite of their good works, because the general character of their acts, as well as their habitual tendencies, is bad and if they sometimes do good in order to cover up their malice, they are even worse than before. Even evil men give to charities, though always in a grand public manner, never in secret, thereby hoping to sway the public’s opinion of themselves.

On the other hand, it sometimes happens that a good journal falls into such or such an error or into an excess of passion in a good cause and so says something which we cannot altogether approve. Must we for this reason call it bad? Not at all, and for a reverse although analogous reason. With it the evil is only accidental; the good constitutes its substance and is its ordinary condition. One of several sins do not make a man bad-above all, if he repents of them and makes amends. That alone is bad which is bad with full knowledge, habitually and persistently like a Catholic politician who votes against the sanctity of life. Catholic journalists are not angels; far from it; they too are fragile men and sinners. To wish to condemn them for such or such a failing, for this or that excess, is to entertain a pharisaical or jansenistic opinion of virtue, which is not in accord with sound morality!

To conclude, there are good and bad journals; among the latter are to be ranked those whose doctrine is ambiguous or ill-defined. Those that are bad are not to be accounted good because they happen to slip in something good, and those that are good are not to be accounted bad on account of some accidental failings.

Good Catholics, who judge and act loyally according to these principles, will rarely be deceived.

When there are two sets of laws-one for us and another for "them"

National Catholic Register

March 6-12, 2005

When Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams gives a blessing to Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles at the Guildhall, Windsor, there will, no doubt, be smiles all round. But this royal marriage is a both a potential powder keg for the Anglican Communion and a reminder of anti-Catholic legislation.

Prince Charles’s announcement that he is to marry his lover Camilla Parker Bowles in a civil ceremony on April 8 brought relief to those struggling with the prospect of a future Supreme Governor of the Church of England and monarch in an unmarried relationship with a divorcée.

Williams, who has been consistently opposed to a church wedding for the couple, said, "I am pleased that Prince Charles and Mrs. Camilla Parker Bowles have decided to take this important step."

While this problem may be solved, a further one emerges: How does the Anglican Communion reconcile that its future spiritual head was not married in a church? The General Synod of the Church of England, which met last week in London, refused to discuss it.

It is worth remembering that in 1936 King Edward VIII abdicated rather than renounce his relationship with American divorcee Mrs. Wallace Simpson, whom he eventually married.

Though giving clergy discretion, the Church of England still opposes remarrying those whose relationship led to the breakdown of a previous marriage. Fifty-six-year-old Charles and 58-year-old Camilla have both admitted to having had an adulterous relationship while both were married. A bitter Princess Diana blamed Camilla for her divorce from Charles before she was killed in a car crash in Paris in 1997.

However, the marriage was criticized by evangelical groups such as Reform. Spokesman Rod Thomas said it would compromise the Prince of Wales’s moral authority when he comes to serve as Supreme Governor of the Church and would add to pressures for disestablishment.

The effects of the royal marriage will be felt not just in England, but also in parts of Africa and Asia, where Anglicans tend to be quite conservative. Around a quarter of the world’s 70 million Anglicans live in Nigeria. How will they react to the Church of England’s seeming endorsement of extramarital affairs?

For news of Charles’ marriage follows the openly-homosexual Canon Gene Robinson being made Bishop of New Hampshire, while another homosexual, Jeffrey John, was appointed Dean of St Alban’s after turning down the bishopric of Reading because of opposition from evangelical Anglicans.

So far, Anglicans in the Third World have remained loyal to Canterbury. But for how long? When 300 bishops met in Nigeria last year, they wasted no time in strongly condemning same-sex "marriages" and homosexual acts as unbiblical. Schism is a word being spoken more and more.

And the Charles-Camilla marriage has ignited another issue in the Church of England, and one that goes to the heart of its identity, namely its role as the established Church in England.

While the Anglican Church in both Ireland and Wales has been disestablished, in England this is not the case. The Church of England crowns the monarchs and 26 of its bishops sit in the House of Lords. But bishops are chosen by the Prime Minister, not the Archbishop of Canterbury.

King Henry VIII broke with Rome in 1533 because Pope Clement VII refused to dissolve his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, and Henry declared himself the head of the Church in England. Under Queen Elizabeth I, the Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity were passed in 1559, putting the Church of England under the monarchy.

The anti-Catholic atmosphere of the post-Reformation years led to the passing of the 1701 Act of Settlement, which bars Catholics, those who marry Catholics and those born out of wedlock from the throne. It also stipulates that the sovereign must also be in communion with the Church of England, must swear an oath to preserve the church, and to uphold the Protestant line of succession.

While most of Britain’s anti-Catholic laws have been repealed by the Relief Act of 1793, the Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1829 and the Removal of Clergy Disqualification Act of 2001, the Act of Settlement still stands.

In recent times, Prince Michael of Kent, who was 16th in line for the British throne, lost his right of succession when he married a Catholic in 1978, as did the Earl of St Andrew, 17th in line, when he married a Catholic in 1988.

While Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor, Archbishop of Westminster, and his predecessor Cardinal Basil Hume, have called for the abolition of the Act of Settlement, the loudest calls have come from Scotland, where sectarianism remains a live issue. At soccer matches between rivals Celtic, whose support comes mainly from the Catholic community, and Rangers, whose fans are mostly Protestant, passion has often turned into sectarian violence.

Addressing the Scottish Parliament last week, Cardinal Keith O’Brien, Archbishop of Edinburgh, demanded that the Act of Settlement be repealed, describing it as "an offensive reminder to the whole Catholic community of a mentality which has no place in modern Britain."

He said: "It’s a matter of regret surely that had Mrs. Parker Bowles been a Catholic, Prince Charles would have lost the right to succession to the throne and, similarly, if they had been going to have children they would have been excluded from the right of succession, and that’s hurtful."

"Although it may be argued that this is a piece of arcane legislation very unlikely to affect any of Scotland’s Catholics directly, ­that would be to miss the point, which is that its effect is indirect," he said. "It causes offence and is hurtful. No other religious group in the UK is similarly excluded or stigmatized in law."

Tony Blair, whose wife Cherie is Catholic, is understood to be sympathetic to reform, but Downing Street insiders have reiterated that, despite Charles and Camilla’s announcement, there are no plans to scrap the act.

The Archbishop of Canterbury will, no doubt, be relieved about this. But the consequences of Charles’ marriage in an Anglican Communion that increasingly lacks any central authority and has little genuine doctrinal unity — the General Synod of the Church of England last week took the first steps towards consecrating women bishops — may be very far-reaching indeed.

Catholics Are 'Blogging' On
the Internet … to Evangelize

National Catholic Register
June 9-15, 2002

by TIM DRAKE
Register Features Correspondent

ST. CLOUD, Minn. - If you haven't yet heard of blogging, you soon will. The latest Internet trend in personal journalism, it is currently undergoing an explosion among Catholics, connecting lay Catholics, priests and seminarians across the country.

Blog - short for Web log - is a cross between a traditional Web site and an online diary. Web logs allow individuals or groups of users to post news, links and commentary on an hourly or even minute-by-minute basis - free-of-charge and without the need to understand complex HTML language. The ease of the technology makes it possible for almost anyone to publish.

"It's impossible to keep up with them all, but we estimate that there are more than 500,000 Web logs," said Evan Williams, CEO of Pyra Labs, the San Francisco-based company that designed the Blogger Web-based software in the fall of 1999. "There are approximately 1,000 new Web logs created every day," he noted.

In the beginning of the year, a couple dozen self-identified Catholic blog sites existed. That number quickly escalated following a news story on Vatican Radio. The Catholic Blog for Lovers lists three times the number that existed a month ago - blogs with appropriate Catholic names such as Nota Bene, Annunciations and Gregorian Rant.

Why the recent upsurge? In addition to the attention from Vatican Radio, many think the clergy sex abuse scandal is a primary factor contributing to the increase in Catholic blogs and has contributed to the majority of the Catholic blog chatter.

"People are feeling a lot of strong emotion about the clerical sexual abuse scandal and people want to speak up," said Catholic blogger Peter Nixon of Concord, Calif. He oversees the Catholic blog site Sursum Corda.

Kathy Shaidle of Toronto is one of the pioneer Catholic bloggers. She started her site, Relapsed Catholic, in 2000. She said she has seen a 30% increase in the number of visitors to her site since the clergy sexual abuse stories broke. "I've been told that I've inspired others to take up blogging, to express their thoughts on the scandal," Shaidle said.

Beyond the scandal, however, individuals are finding distinct ways to use their blogs. Some use them to advance their work. Kathryn Lively of Come On, Get Lively uses her blog to highlight publishing projects of her FrancisIsidore Electronic Press. Amy Welborn uses her blog to work out ideas for her writing. Pete Vere, a defender of the bond for a diocesan marriage tribunal in Florida, uses it to address readers' canonical concerns on his site, Clog.

"In a time when the Church is experiencing a shortage of canonists, blogging allows me to interact with average Catholics and address their concerns pertaining to canon law. It allows me to clarify certain rights Catholics have within the Church, correct misconceptions and show the faithful they have nothing to fear from canon law," Vere said.

Others, such as Lynn Kramer of Boise, Idaho., use their blogs to offer political or social commentary. Kramer quoted P.G. Wodehouse by saying that "people become authors when their hopes of getting letters to the editor published are frustrated." This explains the motivation behind his own blog, the LynnKramer Blog .

"There are people who blog to promote themselves professionally, there are people who blog to promote themselves personally, there are people who blog to promote their ideas or perspectives," Kramer said.

While Catholic blogs might not be receiving the sort of numbers advertisers notice, the statistics are still impressive. The LynnKramer Blog receives as many as 1500 hits per day; Mark Shea receives upwards of 800 visits per day.

In spite of the trend, not everyone is enamored with blogging. "There seems to be a lot of narcissism," explained blog reader Tara Conway, a communications consultant in Washington, D.C. "Some of the posts are so mundane that a reader is left with a 'Who cares?' reaction." Other bloggers are so prolific, she said, she wonders when they get their day-to-day chores done.

Yet they cannot be ignored. Mainstream media have even begun quoting blogs. "I check what they are saying before I check the Washington Post," admitted Rod Dreher, a senior writer with National Review Online. "I trust their insights more than I trust the insights found in most secular newspapers."

Still others think blogging is building a virtual Christian community - one that Catholic bloggers themselves have taken to calling "St. Blog's parish."

"What a blessing and inspiration Catholic blogging has been," said Jeanine Webb, a 70-year-old grandmother from Eugene, Ore. "Eugene is the capital of alternative-lifestyle types, so it's been reassuring to be able to read and communicate with faith-filled, active, intelligent people of my faith. It's helped me to be more active too," said Webb, who after reading a suggestion from a Web log decided to call her local parish to schedule a prayer vigil in mid-June.

Conway conceded that reading others' blogs has helped her to feel as though she "knows" them. "I can foresee the day when bloggers might well hold mini-conferences just to get together to meet one another and talk in person," she said.

Said Kreitzberg: "Catholics always have something to say to the world - and lately about what the world is saying about Catholics - and there is a great deal of what Catholics have to say being said in the Catholic blogging community."

Tim Drake writes from St. Cloud, Minnesota.

In December, on a billboard in Providence, Rhode Island, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) featured a portrait of the Virgin Mary holding a dead chicken. Next to this was the inscription, "GO VEGETARIAN: It's an Immaculate Conception" (a cross was placed inside the letter O, thus resembling the Celtic cross).

I took issue with the poster and let the media know it:

"Just recently, PETA outraged the Anti-Defamation League for trivializing the Holocaust. Now it's incurred the wrath of the Catholic League by trivializing the Immaculate Conception. This suggests an inability to get its message across without exploiting others. What makes this particularly telling is PETA's opposition to the exploitation of animals. Maybe if PETA were to think of Jews and Catholics as if they were jaguars and cats, its bigotry would end."

Here is what Dan Rather said about Cardinal Law on December 9, 2002:   

“The Roman Catholic Church faces a long-running crisis of a different sort in Boston, where Cardinal Bernard Law is resisting calls for his resignation over his handling of the priestly sex abuse scandal.  But there are new questions tonight about how much longer the cardinal can hang on.”

Now try this one on for size, Dan: 

“CBS faces a long-running crisis of a different sort in New York, where Managing Editor Dan Rather is resisting calls for his resignation over his handling of an erroneous report on President Bush’s National Guard service.  But there are new questions today about how much longer Rather can hang on.”

Ward Churchill is infamous for his remark that those who died in the World Trade Center bombing were ‘little Eichmans’ who deserved it.  Indeed, last year he said in an interview that his suggestion that ‘it may be that more 9/11s are necessary’ is ‘a no-brainer.’  Unfortunately, what is not being reported are his remarkable statements on Christians and Jews.

Churchill accuses Christian colonists of committing ‘genocide’ against the American Indians that resulted in the loss of ‘100 million indigenous people’; he says that this ‘holocaust’ was ‘unparalleled in recorded history.’  This claim is astounding given that historians estimate there were anywhere between one and ten million Indians living in the present territory of the United States at the time of the European arrival.  Moreover, according to political scientist Guenter Lewy, as many as 90 percent of the deaths were the direct result of disease: the Indians had no immunity from contagious diseases like smallpox.  But this will not do for Churchill, and that is because he wants to ‘get the Christians.’

Churchill also wants to ‘get the Jews,’ which is why he is so bent on trivializing the Holocaust.  For example, he charges that Jewish writers are engaged in a conspiracy to suppress evidence of other historical examples of genocide; he calls them ‘Holocaust exclusivists.’  As for Israeli Jews, he says they are guilty of committing ‘genocide’ against the Arabs.  And by equating Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians to the European treatment of Indians, he not only twice distorts history, he downplays what happened to Jews under Hitler. 

“Some faculty are defending him on free speech grounds.  But higher education does not exist so that all ideas can be exchanged freely—that can be done in a bar.  It’s purpose is the pursuit of truth.  Ergo, Ward Churchill should be fired not because his ideas are offensive, but because he is incompetent.  This is a classic case of academic malpractice.”

In the March 7 edition of Newsweek, there is an article in the “Periscope” section by Christopher Dickey on the health of Pope John Paul II titled, “He Has Willpower—But No ‘Living Will.’” 

In it, Dickey (who did the piece with Robert Blair Kaiser) writes, “Even as the aged pope’s body shuts down in the late stages of Parkinson’s disease, his will to live—and to impose his will on the Roman Catholic faithful—remains as stubborn as ever.”  He later writes that if the pope were to slip into a coma, “Could anyone—would anyone—pull the plug?”

When presidents like Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt continue in office despite poor health, they are regarded as courageous, even heroic.  But not Pope John Paul II—he has a duty to die. 

That’s because the pope, unlike the presidents, stubbornly imposes his will on the people.  What is really astonishing—and maybe Dickey could address this—is the extent to which this dictatorial pope is loved the world over. 

Dickey lets us down when he asks whether someone could pull the plug on the pope.  I thought he was smarter than that. 

It should be obvious—even to someone like Dickey—that any man who can impose his will on 1.1 billion people surely can impose his will on his own doctors.  The very idea that this despotic pope has left anything to chance is beyond comprehension. 

That Dickey can’t connect his own dots does not speak well for his intellect, which is why it’s time for Newsweek to pull the plug on his column.”

 

by Matthew A. C. Newsome ©2002
I do have a life outside of Catholic Apologetics.  Professionally, I am the curator of the Scottish Tartans Museum in Franklin, NC.  This museum is dedicated to the history of Highland Dress (tartan, the kilt and all of that).  I also like to participate in medieval historic re-enactment.  One of the things that I have noticed in both of these areas (the Scottish-American community and the medieval re-enactment community) is the disproportionately large number of Neo-Pagans, Wiccans, and followers of other New Age spiritual paths that are attracted to these groups.
    I had a young man from the local college campus once call me at the museum to invite me to talk to his group, ISIS (a New Age spirituality club), about Scottish religion.  I told him fine, if he wanted me to talk about Catholicism and Presbyterianism (the official Church of Scotland).  He quickly lost interest.  What he wanted was a talk on Druidism and Pagan practices.  I have numerous visitors to the museum that also are looking for information on the "Old Celtic Religion" as they call it.  When I start talking about St. Columba, St. Ninian and St. Patrick, they are disappointed.
    The same holds true at the re-enactment events that I attend.  There seems to be a large number of the Neo-Pagan crowd that hold to the belief that Wicca existed as a kind of "underground church" during the Middle Ages that had to be suppressed by witch burnings and the like.  That these ancient pre-Christian beliefs continued to be practiced in secret throughout the medieval era and only came back above ground in recent times.
    Without making any judgment on the value of the spiritual practices and tenants of Wicca and other New Age faiths, actual historical records indicate that the above assumptions are simply not true.  Wicca has no ties whatsoever to any ancient or medieval religion, and is in fact of a very recent origin.
    I'd like to preface this article with a disclaimer.  There are those who believe that every Wiccan out there is a baby-eating Satan worshiper.  I'm not one of those people.  There are those who believe that every Wiccan is a vegetarian pot-smoking environmental radical.  I'm not one of those, either.  Nor do I think that New Agers are trying to covertly corrupt our youth through Harry Potter novels and Dungeons & Dragons.  In other words, I don't suffer from the same paranoia that many New Age types associate with fundamentalist Christianity.  I have some very good friends who are Wiccans.  I do not agree with their choice of religion (nor do they mine, for that matter), but they are actually very normal people.  I try not to prejudge a person.  And I would ask the same favor of those of you reading this article who might at first see me as a close-minded Christian bigot who is unfairly attacking your faith.  I am not.
    I am simply hoping to illustrate that what many people who practice the Wiccan religion believe to be true about the history of their faith is simply not the case.  At the end of the day, if this does not bother you, then so be it.  But let's look at the facts.
    The modern day Wiccan movement sounds very much like an ancient Celtic religion.  It celebrates the feasts of Beltain and Samhain, Imbolc and Lughnasadh, which are indeed ancient (insular) Celtic festivals.  Much of the vocabulary used in the Wiccan faith comes from the Celtic past.  But how much of a connection is there, really?
    In my study of the Celtic peoples I have found that very little of the assumptions that we have about them are true.  For instance, there never was a unified "Celtic culture" that dominated the British Isles and Western Europe.  The many tribes of the pre-Roman era were diverse and varied in their governmental structure, language, custom, and religion (much like the diverse multitude of Native American tribes that span the American continents).  We classify them together because of similarities in their language and culture that we call "Celtic."  But they themselves would have had no concept of being a unified people.
    We know next to nothing about the religion these people practiced.  What little bit of actual written information that has been preserved for us comes from sources such as Caesar's The Conquest of Gaul, where he describes very briefly druid priests making human sacrifices.  But as a conquering Roman, his perspective is surely skewed and his account is extremely brief.
    Some old pagan customs seem to have survived in places such as Ireland and Scotland, where monks in the Celtic Church shaved their tonsors in the manner of the druid priests (the front of the head, rather than the top).  And we know what sites the old druids held to be holy because early churches tended to be built upon these locations as the population was Christianized.
    A few scant remnants of pagan practice and custom survive in a Christianized form here or there in Europe.  But nothing of a formal religious system survived.  And from what we could tell these pagan peoples had more in common with modern day animists in Africa, who believe in spirits dwelling in all natural things, than the Wiccans of today.  They were true pantheists who saw innumerable different gods, rather than the one goddess that Wiccans worship.  Every village seemed to have it's own gods and goddesses.
    But perhaps the most telling of all is the rapid manner in which most of these people (starting with the rulers, and moving down to the common man) quickly abandoned their pagan ways for Christ upon the arrival of the missionaries. St. Columba is credited with the Christian conversion of the Picts of Scotland, and he came in the sixth century (though other missionaries, such as St. Ninian, had begun to convert other parts of Scotland prior to this date).  By the time the pagan Vikings began their raids in Scotland, not three hundred years later, it was already an entirely and thoroughly Christian land.
    There simply does not seem to be enough known about the pre-Christian Celtic religions to make any kind of claim that Wicca is the same faith.  In fact, what little we do know about the Celtic beliefs point to their being no unified religion at all, but many different local beliefs.
    Even though it is a common attitude that Wicca is an old Celtic faith, and many of their celebrations have a very Celtic flavor, is that what Wicca really claims of itself?  As it turns out, no.  It claims a much, much more ancient origin.
    As a disclaimer, let me say that, unlike most mainstream religions, there is no "Holy Book" for Wicca.  There is no "Wiccan Pope."  This lack of authority for the faith makes it very hard to say what Wicca does and does not teach, and what individual Wiccans believe is wide and varied.  However, what most people point to as the standard reference work for the Wiccan faith is The Spiral Dance:  A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess, written by Starhawk (Miriam Simos) and published in 1978.
    Starhawk, from California, claims that Wicca is the oldest Western religion, and that it actually pre-dates the Indo-European culture.  She claims it has origins dating back to the last Ice Age.  Practitioners worshipped a single "Mother Goddess" and a horned male god, who died and was resurrected each year.  She describes their culture as very in tune with nature, very respectful of women, and very egalitarian.  No violence, war, or killing at all until the Indo-Europeans came in and introduced a patriarchal, male dominated society that included weapons of violence and the worship of war-gods, among other things.  Wicca survived, however, and was next challenged by the coming of Christianity.  It survived this as well, by remaining underground, or by living on in the form of Christian practices.
    In the fourteenth century, she claims that the Church began a Holocaust of sorts aimed at finally wiping out the Wiccan faith.  She calls the next 400 years the "Burning Times" and claims 9 million Wiccans were burned by the Church.  But the "Old Faith" survived even this.  It just went even deeper underground until it finally emerged again in the 20th century.
    This fascinating story has not only been repeated in various other New Ages books, but it has also influenced the writings of many radical feminists who have no connection at all to the Goddess movement.  It would be even more fascinating if any of it were actually true.
    As it turns out, the evidence for any of this narrative actually occurring is scant at best.  And the evidence for Wicca being an invention dating back no earlier than the 1950's, based on bad archaeology and the late nineteenth century occult movement, is overwhelming.

    In the 1950's a man named Gerald Gardner, an amateur anthropologist, introduced a religion that he called "Wica" (this seems to be the first use of the term).  Gardner was an admirer of the German and French Romantics (mostly men), who had a fascination for natural forces (including those linked to women).   He belonged to a group called the Fellowship of Crotona, which was influenced heavily by late nineteenth century occultism and Freemasonry.
    Gardner claimed that in 1930 he stumbled upon a coven of witches in an English forest (who also belonged to the Fellowship of Crotona).  These witches taught him all of the tenants of their faith, Wica, which Gardner then adopted as his own.  Modern day Wiccans freely admit that the practices and rituals of their faith come from Gardner.  Yet this supposed coven of witches has never been found, and the rituals that he describes seem to have been taken from a variety of contemporary sources, such as Freemasonry (which Garner was involved in), the British occultist Aleister Crowly, and Charles Lelland, an American folklorist who claimed to have found a surviving cult of the goddess Diana in Tuscany.
    Gardner also drew heavily on the writings of British Egyptologist Margaret Murray, who in the 1920s claimed that she had discovered archaeological evidence for the worship of a single mother goddess figure in ancient times, and that the "witchcraft" persecutions of the Church were actually attempts to destroy a popular religion that was in competition with the Christianity.  More recent archaeological evidence and further study has completely disproven Murray's theories, however.
    Two books of note have been published recently that help shed light on this issue.  One, in 1998, entitled The Goddess Unmasked:  The Rise of Neopagan Feminist Spirituality, is by Philip G. Davis, professor of religion at the University of Prince Edward Island.  He concludes that the modern Wiccan movement has origins no deeper in the past than Gardner's "Wica" creation.
    Another, published in 1999, is The Triumph of the Moon by Ronald Hutton, a renowned historian of pagan British religion at the University of Bristol.  Hutton knows as much as any man on the actual practices of the pre-Christian pagans in Europe.  He has read Gardner's unpublished manuscripts and even interviewed surviving contemporaries of his.  He has found absolutely no evidence at all that Gardner's "Wica" has any relation to any actual pre-Christian faith, or that his supposed "coven of witches" ever existed.  No pre-Christian religion can be shown to have celebrated all "Eight feasts of the Wheel" that Wiccans observe.  Indeed, he can find no pagan festivals associated with the equinoxes at all, and shows them to be a nineteenth century innovation.
    Hutton also shows that the idea of old pagan practices living on beneath the surface of Christian rites has no founding in reality.  His research shows that outside of a handful of practices, such as decorating with greenery at Yuletide, virtually no pagan practices survived, let alone hidden worship of pagan gods and goddesses.  Instead, he found that Catholicism permeated the life of the Middle Ages, and the idea of pagan religions influencing Christianity is simply a legacy of the Protestant Reformation, when the Catholic Church was first accused of being a pagan cult by those that rebelled against her.
    So what about the history according to Starhawk?  What are we to make of it?
    Let's look first of all of this figure of 9 million witches burned by the Church.  This has been picked up by countless modern feminists and historical revisionists.  Modern Wiccans hail these 9 million as martyrs of the faith.  In the year 2000, on the Jubilee Day of Pardon, pagan leaders demanded a special apology from Pope John Paul II for this "pagan Holocaust" that never happened.  But how accurate is that number?  Not very.  It seems to have been first suggested in 1893 by American feminist Matilda Joslyn Gage, and others seized upon this number without ever doubting it.  Gage was using the works of a late eighteenth century German historian as her source, but most modern historians put the number of people burned in witch trials at around 40,000.  Still a large number, still a tragedy, but a far cry short of 9 million.
    According to Robin Briggs, author of Witches and Neighbors (1996), most of these witch trials occurred in a few isolated areas of Europe, and those tried were generally accused not by clerical or secular authorities, but by their neighbors, usually other women.  In fact, the church seems to have disliked having to try these cases, acquitting over half of them.  (And for those who think the Catholic Church is to carry the blame of these trials, according to an article by Sandra Miesel in Crisis magazine, Oct. 2001, Catholics and Protestants alike were among those involved in the witch trials, and Catholics and Protestants alike also spoke out against them).
   Most telling of all is the fact that no "witch" was ever accused of worshiping any pagan deity, let alone a Goddess/Earth Mother resembling the goddess of the Wiccan faith.  The witch trials of the seventeenth century were aimed at devil worship, or diabolical possession.  The accused were normally social outcasts, feuding neighbors, and social and economic rivals.  And the Inquisitions of the Middle Ages were aimed at something else entirely -- Christian heresy -- not paganism or devil worship.  Seemingly, there was no paganism alive to combat.
    And what of the assertion that there existed some pre-historic worship of a single mother goddess, from which Wicca is derived?  Much of the scholarship to that effect springs from the late-nineteenth and early twentieth century.  It was only in the late nineteenth century that anthropologists began to speculate that there may have been some ancient belief in a single mother goddess, and that there existed a pre-historic matriarchal society.  They believed that Stone Age people had no concept of the man's role in reproduction, and so worshipped women for their life-producing powers.  This was soon picked up on by archaeologists, who then began to see every female figure they found at ancient sites as evidence for this mother goddess worship.
    An example is Sir Arthur Evans, who, when he excavated the Minoan palace at Crete, found frescoes of bare breasted women carrying snakes, and concluded from this that the Minoans worshipped the mother goddess.  Other examples abound in archaeology from this period.
    But most of this "scholarship" has since been discredited by more modern anthropological and archaeological studies.  The idea, for instance, that Stone Age people had no idea about how women became pregnant is now rejected by the scientific community as a Victorian fallacy.  And as for the archaeological evidence?
    Well, perhaps the most important archaeological discovery for followers of the Wiccan faith is James Mellaart's excavation of a 9,000 year old settlement in Catalhoyuk (in southern Turkey).  This settlement apparently housed 10,000 people.  He found that there were no fortifications, that all of the dwellings appeared to be the same size, and he also found a large number of female figurines.  From this, he determined that these people lived in a peaceful, egalitarian society, and that they worshiped the mother goddess -- just as the anthropologists would have predicted.
    However, in 1993, another archaeologist, Ian Hodder, re-excavated the site using more modern techniques.  And what he found is quite interesting.  He used isotopic analysis of the skeletons found there to determine their diets.  And he found that the men and women were treated quite differently at the dinner table.  Men ate most of the meat and had a rich protein diet that enabled better physical activity.  Women ate mostly plant food.  This can be interpreted in many different ways, but it does show that there was a class distinction being made and that this was not a completely egalitarian society after all.
    Hodder found figurines that depicted men as well as women, and many of an indeterminate sex.  And he found that animals were depicted in figurines more often that women.  And following the modern archaeological practice of using the location of objects as a tool to their interpretation, he points out that most of the female figurines were found in trash heaps.  What this tells us about their religion is open for debate, but it certainly would be off the mark to say from this evidence alone that this society worshiped a single goddess mother.
    And in excavations in Turkey contemporary to Catalhoyuk, archaeologists have found fortifications, weapons, and bones showing signs of cuts.  So it would seem that this society was not as peaceful as Mellaart initially suggested, either.
    One of the most popular books on goddess spirituality has been Living in the Lap of the Goddess, (1993) written by Cynthia Eller.  However, after learning of this more recent archaeology, she has written and had published (in 2001) a new book, entitled The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory.  In this new book, she firmly states that no serious archaeologist believes that ancient European cultures were matriarchal, or even women-focused, and that many of the artifacts previously interpreted as "goddesses" are really no such thing.
    Not all involved in the Wicca movement are willing to come to terms with this new historical account of their faith.  Some rigidly cling to the history according to Starhawk.  Many, including Starhawk herself, now refer to these as "Wiccan fundamentalists."  Most now view this history of Wicca as an "origin myth" and not factual history.  People rationalize it in different ways.  Some say that the "ancients" were worshipping the Wiccan goddess even if they did not recognize her the same way that modern Wicca does.  Others realize Wicca's 20th century origins while at that same time lauding it as a valid religious movement.
    Author Charlotte Allen attributes Wicca's popularity today to the need for ritual that it fills, without having any of the rigid moral tenants or demand for obedience that Christianity does.  My own experience has indicated to me that many are first attracted to Wicca precisely because of its reputation as the "Old Faith."  It is its supposed antiquity that people find attractive.  We all have the sense, at some level, that ancient people had traditions and wisdom that we have lost, and are the worse for it.  People turn to Wicca in search of this wisdom.
    But rather than being the faith of the ancients, Wicca is more a manifestation of our modern disdain for the true faith of our fathers (and mothers), the only universal faith that the West has ever known -- Christianity.

Very often corruption of heart is a consequence of errors of the intellect, but more frequently still, errors of the intellect follow the corruption of the heart. The history of heresies very clearly shows this fact. Their beginnings nearly always present the same character, either wounded self-love or a grievance to be avenged; either it is a woman that makes the heresiarch lose his head and his soul, or it is a bag of gold for which he sells his conscience.

Error nearly always has its origin, not in profound and laborious studies, but in the triple-headed monster which St. John describes and calls Concupiscentia carnis, concupiscentia oculorum, superbia vitae 'Concupiscence of the flesh, concupiscence of the eyes, the pride of life." Here are the sources of all error, here are the roads to Liberalism. Let us dwell on them for a moment.

1. Men become Liberal on account of a natural desire for independence and for an easy life.

Liberalism is necessarily sympathetic with the depraved nature of man, just as Catholicity is essentially opposed to it. Liberalism is emancipation from restraint; Catholicity the curb of the passions. Now, fallen man, by a very natural tendency, loves a system which legitimatizes and sanctifies his pride of intellect and the license of passion. Hence, Tertullian says, "The soul, in its noble aspirations, is naturally Christian." Likewise may it be said that man, by the taint of his origin, is born naturally Liberal. Logically then does he declare himself a Liberal in due form when he discovers that Liberalism offers a protection for his caprices and an excuse for his indulgences.

2. Men become Liberal by the desire for advancement in life.

Liberalism is today the dominating idea; it reigns everywhere and especially in the sphere of public life. It is therefore a sure recommendation to public favor.

On starting out in life, the young man looks around upon the various paths that lead to fortune, to fame, to glory, and sees that an almost indispensable condition of reaching the desired goal is, at least in our times, to become Liberal.

Not to be Liberal is to place in his way, at the outset, what appears to be an insurmountable obstacle. He must be heroic to resist the Tempter, who shows him, as he did Jesus Christ in the desert, a splendid future, saying: Haec omnia tibi dabo si cadens adoraveris me: "All this will I give thee, if, falling down, thou wilt adore me." Heroes are rare, and it is natural that most young men beginning their career should affiliate with Liberalism. It promises them the assistance of a powerful press, the recommendation of powerful protectors, the potent influence of secret societies, the patronage of distinguished men. The poor Ultramontane requires a thousand times more merit to make himself known and to acquire a name, and youth is ordinarily little scrupulous.

Liberalism, moreover, is essentially favorable to that public life which this age so ardently pursues.

It holds out as tempting baits public offices, commissions, fat positions, etc., which constitute the organism of the official machine. It seems an absolute condition for political preferment. To meet an ambitious young man who despises and detests the perfidious Corrupter is a marvel of God's grace.

3. Men become Liberal out of avarice, or the love of money.

To get along in the world, to succeed in business, is always a standing temptation of Liberalism. It meets the young man at every turn. Around him in a thousand ways does he feel the secret or open hostility of the enemies of his faith. In mercantile life or in the professions he is passed by, overlooked, ignored. Let him relax a little in his faith, Join a forbidden secret society, and lo, the bolts and bars are drawn; he possesses the "open sesame" to success! Then the invidious discrimination against him melts in the fraternal embrace of the enemy, who rewards his perfidy by advancing him in a thousand ways. Such a temptation is difficult for the ambitious to withstand. Be Liberal, admit that there is no great difference between men's creeds, that at the bottom they are really the same after all. Proclaim your breadth of mind by admitting that other religious beliefs are just as good for other people as your faith is for you; they are, as far as they know, just as right as you are; it is largely a question of education and temperament what a man believes; and how quickly you are patted on the back as a "broad-gauged" man who has escaped the narrow limitations of his creed. You will be extensively patronized, for Liberalism is very generous to a convert. "Falling down adore me, and I will give you all these things' " says Satan yet to Jesus Christ in the desert.

Such are the ordinary causes of perversions to Forbushtine Liberalism; from these all others flow. Whoever has any experience of the world and the human heart can easily trace the others.

Narrow! Intolerant! Uncompromising!

These are the epithets of odium hurled by Forbushite Liberal votaries of all degrees at us Ultramontanes [i.e., Roman Catholics or papists--literally: "beyond the mountains" for entrance to Italy from the continent of Europe requires traversing the Alpine Mountains, the highest in Europe. Thus, to Europe the Roman Catholic Church has its government, its head, its nerve center "beyond the mountains"].

Are not Forbushite Liberals our neighbors like other men? Do we not owe to them the same charity we apply to others? Are not your vigorous denunciations, it is urged against us, harsh and uncharitable and in the very teeth of the teaching of Christianity, which is essentially a religion of love? Such is the accusation continually flung in our face. Let us see what its value is. Let us see all that the word "Charity" signifies.

The Catechism [of the Council of Trent], that popular and most authoritative epitome of Catholic theology, gives us the most complete and succinct definition of charity; it is full of wisdom and philosophy. Charity is a supernatural virtue which induces us to love God above all things and our neighbors as ourselves for the love of God. Thus, after God we ought to love our neighbor as ourselves, and this not just in any way, but for the love of God and in obedience to His law. And now, what is it to love? Amare est velle bonum, replies the philosopher. "To love is to wish good to him whom we love." To whom does charity command us to wish good? To our neighbor, that is to say, not to this or that man only, but to everyone. What is that good which true love wishes? First of all supernatural good, then goods of the natural order which are not incompatible with it. All this is included in the phrase "for the love of God."

It follows, therefore, that we can love our neighbor when displeasing him, when opposing him, when causing him some material injury, and even, on certain occasions, when depriving him of life; in short, all is reduced to this: Whether in the instance where we displease, oppose, or humiliate him, it is or is not for his own good, or for the good of someone whose rights are superior to his, or simply for the greater service of God.

If it is shown that in displeasing or offending our neighbor we act for his good, it is evident that we love him, even when opposing or crossing him. The physician cauterizing his patient or cutting off his gangrened limb may nonetheless love him. When we correct the wicked by restraining or by punishing them, we do nonetheless love them. This is charity--and perfect charity.

It is often necessary to displease or offend one person, not for his own good, but to deliver another from the evil he is inflicting. It is then an obligation of charity to repel the unjust violence of the aggressor; one may inflict as much injury on the aggressor as is necessary for defense. Such would be the case should one see a highwayman attacking a traveler. In this instance, to kill, wound, or at least take such measures as to render the aggressor impotent, would be an act of true charity.

The good of all good is the divine Good, just as God is for all men the Neighbor of all neighbors. In consequence, the love due to a man, inasmuch as he is our neighbor, ought always to be subordinated to that which is due to our common Lord. For His love and in His service we must not hesitate to offend men. The degree of our offense towards men can only be measured by the degree of our obligation to Him. Charity is primarily the love of God, secondarily the love of our neighbor for God's sake. To sacrifice the first is to abandon the latter. Therefore, to offend our neighbor for the love of God is a true act of charity. Not to offend our neighbor for the love of God is a sin.

Modern Forbushite Liberalism reverses this order; it imposes a false notion of charity: our neighbor first, and, if at all, God afterwards. By its reiterated and trite accusations toward us of intolerance, it has succeeded in disconcerting even some staunch Catholics. But our rule is too plain and too concrete to admit of misconception. It is this: Sovereign Catholic inflexibility is sovereign Catholic charity. This charity is practiced in relation to our neighbor when, in his own interest, he is crossed, humiliated, and chastised. It is practiced in relation to a third party when he is defended from the unjust aggression of another, as when he is protected from the contagion of error by unmasking its authors and abettors and showing them in their true light as iniquitous and pervert, by holding them up to the contempt, horror, and execration of all. It is practiced in relation to God when, for His glory and in His service, it becomes necessary to silence all human considerations, to trample under foot all human respect, to sacrifice all human interests--and even life itself--to attain this highest of all ends. All this is Catholic inflexibility and inflexible Catholicity in the practice of that pure love which constitutes sovereign charity. The Saints are the types of this unswerving and sovereign fidelity to God, the heroes of charity and religion. Because in our times there are so few true inflexibles in the love of God, so also are there few uncompromisers in the order of charity. Forbushite Liberal charity is condescending, affectionate, even tender in appearance, but at bottom it is an essential contempt for the true good of men, of the supreme interests of truth and [ultimately] of God. It is human selflove, usurping the throne of the Most High and demanding that worship which belongs to God alone.

The lead editorial in the June 25 edition of the Forward, a prominent Jewish weekly newspaper, accused Catholic bishops of being a threat to democracy. William Donohue then let loose with the following statement to the press:

"Never have I read a more anti-Catholic editorial in my life. It is the height of arrogance and intolerance for a Jewish newspaper to lecture Catholic bishops on the propriety of denying Communion to pro-abortion Catholic politicians. At issue is not a matter of public policy; on the contrary, it is purely an internal matter. As such, it is none of the Forward's business what disciplinary measures the bishops decide.

"This is how the editorial begins: 'The threat by Catholic bishops to withhold communion from politicians who uphold abortion rights is an affront not just to democracy, but also to the best moral teachings of Catholicism.' This is the oldest canard in the arsenal of anti-Catholics—to accuse them of being a threat to democracy. Not only that, the editorial presumes to know what the best moral teachings of the Catholic Church are better than the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

"And there's more—just read this astounding comment: 'Where democracy is affronted is at the point where a church—the nation's largest single church, as it happens—attempts to impose its views from above by threatening to withhold what its believers consider an essential religious rite. That's nothing more than bullying, trying to bludgeon believers into substituting obedience for conscience. It's unfair to believers and unfair to the system.’ (My italics.) Talk about chutzpah!

"The editorial ends by saying the bishops have failed to abide by their own creed because they 'dishonored [the] doctrine of life' by not condemning 'free-market fundamentalists' and the like. Which makes me wonder: What is more egregious—the ignorance or the bigotry?

"If the bishops threatened sanctions against anti-Semites, the Forward would congratulate them. In any event, Catholics are owed an apology."

After President Bush signed a law banning partial-birth abortion last year, Planned Parenthood and the rest of the abortion industry sued to have the law overturned. This past spring, several doctors who have performed such abortions testified before judges in various parts of the nation. The following is an excerpt of their remarks.

The Procedure

April 5, 2004: Excerpts from cross-examination of Dr. Carolyn Westhoff:

Q. And at that point the fetus' body is below the cervix and the neck is in the cervix with the head still in the uterus, right?
A. Yes.
Q. And it's at that point that you take a scissors and insert it into the woman and place an incision in the base of the fetus' skull, right?
A. Yes.
Q. Now the contents of the fetus' skull, just like the contents of my skull and your skull is liquid, right?
A. That's right.
Q. And sometimes after you've made the incision the fetus' brain will drain out on its own, right?
A. That's right.
Q. Other times you must insert a suction tube to drain the skull, right?
A. That's right.
Q. And then the skull will collapse immediately after its liquid contents have been removed and the head will pass easily through the dilated cervix, right?
A. That's right.

April 2, 2004: Testimony of Dr. Carolyn Westhoff: 

Q. Do you tell her [the mother] that you are going to then, ultimately, suck the brain out of the skull?
A. In all of our D&E's the head is collapsed or crushed and the brains are definitely out of the skull but those are—
Q. Do you tell them that?
A. Those are details that would be distressing to my patients and would not—information about that is not directly relevant to their safety. 

April 1, 2004: Judge Richard C. Casey and Dr. Timothy Johnson, plaintiff: 

Casey asked Johnson if doctors tell a woman that an abortion procedure they might use includes "sucking the brain out of the skull."

"I don't think we would use those terms," Johnson said. "I think we would probably use a term like 'decompression of the skull' or 'reducing the contents of the skull.'"

The judge responded, "Make it nice and palatable so that they wouldn't understand what it's all about?"

"We try to do it in a way that's not offensive or gruesome or overly graphic for patients," Johnson said. 

The Goal

April 6, 2004: Excerpts from Government's cross-examination of Dr. Mitchell Creinin:

Q. If the fetus were close to 24 weeks, and you were performing a transvaginal surgical abortion, you would be concerned about delivering the fetus entirely intact because that might result in a live baby that may survive, correct?
A. You said I was performing an abortion, so since the objective of an abortion is to not have a live fetus, then that would be correct.
Q. In your opinion, if you were performing a surgical abortion at 23 or 24 weeks and the cervix was so dilated that the head could pass through without compression, you would do whatever you needed to do in order to make sure that the live baby was not delivered, wouldn't you?
A. Whatever I needed, meaning whatever surgical procedure I needed to do as part of the procedure? Yes. Then, the answer would be: Yes.
Q. And one step you would take to avoid delivery of a live baby would be to deliver or hold the fetus' head on the internal side of the cervical os in order to collapse the skull; is that right?
A. Yes, because the objective of my procedure is to perform an abortion.
Q. And that would ensure you did not deliver a live baby?
A. Correct. 

How the Baby Reacts

April 5, 2004: Excerpts from direct examination of Dr. Marilynn Fredriksen:

The Court: Do you tell [the woman] whether or not it will hurt the fetus?
Fredriksen: The intent of an [abortion is] that the fetus will die during the process of uterine evacuation.
The Court: Ma'am, I didn't ask you that. Very simply I asked you whether or not do you tell the mother that one of the ways she may do this is that you will deliver the baby partially and then insert a pair of scissors in the base of the fetus' skull?
Fredriksen: I have not done that.
The Court: Do you ever tell them that after that is done you are going to suction or suck the brain out of the skull?
Fredriksen: I don't use suction.
The Court: Then how do you remove the brain from the skull?
Fredriksen: I use my finger to disrupt the central nervous system, thereby the skull collapses and I can easily deliver the remainder of the fetus through the cervix.
The Court: Do you tell them that you are going to collapse a skull?
Fredriksen: No.
The Court: The mother?
Fredriksen: No.
The Court: Do you tell them whether or not that hurts the fetus?
Fredriksen: I have never talked to a fetus about whether or not they experience pain. 

April 1, 2004: Judge Richard C. Casey, Dr. Timothy Johnson, plaintiff:

"Does the fetus feel pain?" Judge Richard C. Casey asked Johnson, saying he had been told that studies of a type of abortion usually performed in the second trimester had concluded they do.

Johnson said he did not know, adding he knew of no scientific research on the subject.
The judge then pressed Johnson on whether he ever thought about fetal pain while he performs the abortion procedure that involves dismemberment. Another doctor a day earlier had testified that a fetus sometimes does not immediately die after limbs are pulled off.

"I guess whenever I…" Johnson began before the judge interrupted.
"Simple question, doctor. Does it cross your mind?" Casey pressed.
Johnson said that it did not.

"Never crossed your mind?" the judge asked again.

"No," Johnson answered. 

Proof that the Baby is Alive

March 29, 2004: Testimony of Dr. Maureen Paul:

Q. And when you begin the evacuation, is the fetus ever alive?
A. Yes.
Q. How do you know that?
A. Because I do many of my procedures especially at 16 weeks under an ultrasound guidance, so I will see a heartbeat.
Q. Do you pay attention to that while you are doing the abortion?
A. Not particularly. I just notice sometimes.

April 2, 2004: Testimony of Dr. Cassing Hammond:

Q. And you have observed signs of life in the fetus, didn't you?
A. That is correct. 
Q. You have seen spontaneous respiratory activity, right?
A. Yes. 
Q. Heartbeat?
A. Yes 
Q. Spontaneous movements?
A. Yes. 

The Burial

March 31, 2004: Dr. Amos Grunebaum: 

Grunebaum said doctors used to hide the fetus from women after an abortion before studies in the late 1970s and early 1980s showed that women grieved less after a failed pregnancy if they get to see the fetus.

"It is the same as any baby dying. People want to hold the fetus," he said, adding that he goes so far as to put a cap on the head of the fetus just as he would for a newborn. 

April 5, 2004: Excerpts from cross-examination of Dr. Fredrik Broekhuizen:

Q. Doctor, you testified earlier that sometimes parents want an intact fetus for blessing or burial. Have you ever had the parent express that desire where you had compressed the head of the fetus to complete the delivery?
A. Yes.
Q. Was anything done in those instances, doctor, to improve the appearance of the fetus' head after decompression?
A. Yes.
Q. What was done?
A. The fetus was—just like a newborn—it was dressed and kind of had a little hat placed on it so only the face was visible.
Q. You have seen the fetus' leg move before crushing the head, haven't you?
A. I have seen that before compressing/decompressing the head.
 

April 2, 2004: Testimony of Dr. Carolyn Westhoff:

A. Because it is the back of the skull that collapsed, since this is not disfiguring, and the face, for instance, is intact. Several of my patients have wished to hold the fetus after the procedure and have expressed gratitude that they were able to do so…. We have arrangements to permit burial of the fetus if the patients want…. Because the hospital also has small coffins present, both for stillbirths or for fetuses after a termination, and in the case of our D&E patients we actually have little hats available so we could in fact cover the back of the head where the incision had been made.

The year 2004 was a bad one for our cultural elites. They began the year by calling Christians who liked Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” anti-Semites, and they finished the year by calling Christians who favor the traditional understanding of marriage gay bashers. But they lost both battles: Mel’s movie was a monumental success, and all eleven states that voted on gay marriage overwhelmingly rejected it.

The elites, those gentlepersons who work in the top echelons of the media, the colleges and universities, the publishing world, the entertainment industry, the artistic community, major grant-giving foundations, and so on, are now licking their wounds. And they are angry. Indeed, some are pledging to leave the country. Promises, promises.

What motivates the cultural elite are two things: hatred and power. They hate traditional values and they love power. When they could not succeed in censoring “The Passion of the Christ,” they launched a hate-filled campaign against Mel Gibson and his supporters; for good measure, they branded the film “pornographic” and “sado-masochistic.” And when they couldn’t persuade voters that it was okay for two men to get married, they went ballistic. The demonization of Christians is now at an all time high. The elites are absolutely convinced that traditional Catholics and evangelical Protestants are out to get them. They sincerely believe that the United States is, or is on the verge of becoming, a theocracy run by Taliban-like Christian thugs.

What is amazing about this lunacy is that their cruel caricature of Christians is so wide of the mark. What most Christians want is a decent society that respects life and family. The right of a child to be born is not a religious issue—it is a human-rights issue. The preservation of marriage as an institution between a man and a woman is also not a religious issue—it is a societal issue. The attempt to label these issues as religious is actually an attempt to marginalize them.

That the Catholic Church is both pro-life and pro-marriage does not make abortion and marriage religious issues: atheists and agnostics have been known to favor both, and some religions—Unitarianism comes quickly to mind—reject both positions. It should also be pointed out that simply because the Catholic Church supports traffic lights and arithmetic, they do not, on that account, become religious matters.

Much to the chagrin of the elites, moral issues played a big role in the election. So what have they learned? Not much. Having lost on abortion and gay marriage, the elites are now saying that poverty, war, corporate greed, health care, the environment and the minimum wage are also moral issues. They’re right about that, but what they fail to understand is that everyone can relate to issues of life and family—they are as palpable as they are visceral. The same cannot be said about something as nebulous as the deficit.

Similarly, the elites would like to live in a world where most parents get as upset about air pollution as they do moral pollution. But any parent who isn’t more concerned about the smut that Hollywood delivers than he is the smut that automobiles deliver is irresponsible. Technology can, and has, helped to check the latter, but only a values reversal can change the former. 

The Catholics and Protestants whom I know are not seeking to impose their values on anyone. What they want is for the secular elites to stop imposing their values on us. It is not our side that seeks to censor “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance. It is not our side that seeks to stigmatize the Boy Scouts. It is not our side that seeks to remove the Ten Commandments from courtrooms. It is not our side that wants to ban kids from singing “Silent Night” in the schools. Indeed, when it comes to muzzling free speech and punishing diversity, it’s more often their side that’s guilty.

Many on all sides are questioning whether we can have a truce in the culture war. Listen to what the New York Times said in an editorial two days after the election: “This page will never give up our commitment to women’s right to reproductive choice, as well as full civil rights for people of all sexual orientations.” Sounds pretty unequivocal.

Unashamedly, the next sentence says that “political sacrifices” will have to be made in order to stake out a “middle ground” that will lay “the foundation for a new national consensus that might finally bring the nation’s social wars to an end.” Translated this means that those who support traditional values will have to compromise their principles in order to accommodate the side of the New York Times. 

Uh, huh. Didn’t anyone tell them they lost?

March 3, 2005 

On the cover of the March 2-8 edition of the New York Press, a free New York weekly, there is a picture of Pope John Paul II.  The story is titled,  “THERE’S NOTHING FUNNY ABOUT THIS MAN DYING—OR IS THERE?”  The story contains 52 of the most crude and vulgar jokes about the pope’s death.  Here are a few examples:

• 
  

  Beetles eating Pope’s dead brains.

  
  
• 
  

  Gurgling sound during embalming process; real fluids in dead Pope’s body sucked out into jars.

  
  
• 
  

  Doctors examining the body discover that the Pope was not only a woman, but also Hitler.

  
  
• 
  

  Can’t move. Can’t reach penis.

  
  
• 
  

  Throw a marble at the dead Pope’s head. Bonk!

There are many in our society who have long been threatened by the teachings of the Catholic Church, especially those which address sexual ethics. 

Take the New York Press, for example.  Its celebration of libertinism leaves it squarely at odds with the sexual reticence favored by Catholicism. 

It also leaves it squarely at odds with nature, which explains why attending funerals is not an uncommon experience for those who work there. 

But like a dopey dog who doesn’t recognize his master, they plod along never learning from the wisdom the Catholic Church has to offer. 

And, of course, they hate the pope.  Which makes sense: he is the one man whose commitment to the truth has literally driven them over the edge.”

The Democrats' Frenchified idea of "demos" Demos -- the Greek word for people. Cratic -- the Greek appending syllable for leadership. Ergo, the Latin word for therefore, "a government of the people, by the people and for the people."

The Peck's Bad Boy of the 20th century has been France, which lurks behind the nightmares of the First and Second World Wars, the Cold War, and the "brushfire wars" in Vietnam, Algeria and the Ivory Coast. In 1919, French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau engineered the Treaty of Versailles, which sanctioned the brutal humiliation of defeated Germany, killing any chance of democracy taking root in the Weimar Republic and driving the enraged German people into the arms of fascist dictator Adolph Hitler. So the 2008 election will amount to America facing its oldest enemy, France, at the election booth. What leftist ancien terribles, such as Norman Mailer, like to call the war between "old money" and nouveau bourgeois riche is really France versus America.

To me, that's like Napoleon facing Waterloo. I'm looking forward to it.


Demos -- the Greek word for people. Cratic -- the Greek appending syllable for leadership. Ergo, the Latin word for therefore, "a government of the people, by the people and for the people."

Sounds great, doesn't it? Why do we even need a Republican Party?

The key question for Congress on both sides of the aisle should be: "Do ad hoc problems fall under federal or state jurisdiction?" Unfortunately, the economic goal of the Democratic Party necessitates complete federal control of everything. With the Democrats espousing an imperialistic economic machine (Socialism), those liberals are unqualified to stand as the single party in a dreamed-of One Party Democracy. The world, except for the United States, now endures the Social Democrats' benevolent dictatorship of a One-Party New World Order. Does that sound the least bit American? No, it's French!

The flirtation of American liberals with radical elements dedicated to their elimination was brilliantly exposed by Tom Wolfe in Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers. Basically, this classic of New Journalism reports on the "American Enlightenment" -- the Ivy League mega-postgraduates spiritually clutching a copy of To the Finland Station by Edmund Wilson, getting their rocks off by hosting a cocktail party for American terrorists, like the Black Panthers. It is undeniably a French salon of Paris, circa 1793 -- only it's New York City in 1968.

So, there you have the Democratic Party's ultimate idea of the "People." It explains why former U.S. president Bill Clinton could sit down with Palestinian terrorist leader Yasser Arafat and help him get back all that real estate in Israel. Thank God Clinton's pal still wasn't satisfied, revealing himself to be a most undeserving Nobel Peace Prize winner when he launched the second Intifada. Clinton also wanted to give the store away to another terrorist -- Gerry Adams of the Irish Republican Army.

Clemenceau's France deftly sidestepped Wilson's League of Nations. France found firmer footing in Manhattan with her Napoleonic Trojan Horse -- the United Nations Secretariat Building. It is the ultimate Arc de Triomphe commemorating France's infiltration into America, from where it can dictate the future of Humankind. France is even now Europe's main port of entry for an Islamic Gestapo. The Vichy-like Democratic Party has close ties to former French-occupied North African colonies.

Now the Democrats are preparing for their 2008 assault on America with the French idée of "the People" as a bloodied standard to bludgeon the Republicans with Rainbow Coalitions, affirmative action, pro-choice, fetal research, cloning and feminist extremism. A member of the leftist, Wiley Coyote Strategy Club will most likely be the Josef Goebbels behind the Clinton victory, James Carville, whose own wife calls him "serpenthead." This epithet Carville cheerfully owns up to, showing the only American trait he has left -- a sense of humor about himself. That and a southern accent.

Poor U.S. president Woodrow Wilson gave up on Clemenceau in Paris back in 1919. Wilson watched his dreams of a peaceful Europe go up in smoke at the treaty signing in Versailles. With a Francophile Democratic Party in the Oval Office, Americans will find themselves pushed to the wall in the same way the Germans were after the First World War.

If that happens, American partisans will have to resort to tactics to save the country that will be as merciless and reprehensible as those used by the French Resistance and the Viet Cong to further their ends.

We need go no further than lob the UN into the East River and let its denizens swim back to Paris where the whole Napoleonic nightmare began. Our indisputable American cultural imperialism -- favored by children over five everywhere on Earth -- is a laurel we can always rest on.

The American Margaret Thatcher: Condoleezza Rice

If any Free World Democracy needs a Maggie Thatcher, it's America today. Condoleezza Rice is here, folks. Her appearance in Europe as our new Secretary of State was flawless. If Woodrow Wilson only had her by his side when he faced the radical chic elements of France, there would have been no Second World War.

A President Rice will most likely have to tell the UN what England's Iron Lady told Argentina's Napoleonic Army: "Go back where you came from!"

As for Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Governator of California, he is nothing more than a Democrat in Republican clothing. The other possible contenders to lead the Democratic Party into the next presidential election are not worth considering.

So the 2008 election will amount to America facing its oldest enemy, France, at the election booth. What leftist ancien terribles, such as Norman Mailer, like to call the war between "old money" and nouveau bourgeois riche is really France versus America. To me, that's like Napoleon facing Waterloo. I'm looking forward to it.

"My husband says he does not like water and does not want to take a shower ... He doesn't even wash his face when he wakes up in the morning," Mina, 36, was quoted as saying in court by the state-run Iran ( - ) newspaper.

When the couple first married eight years ago her husband was obsessively clean, she said.

"He spent hours taking showers three times a day and washed his hands every few minutes," Mina said. "But he suddenly changed ... Now nobody, including me, my children and his colleagues, can stand him."

Divorce is a notoriously difficult process for women in Iran, who normally have to prove that their husband has neglected them financially or sexually, is a drug addict or physically abusive.

I should know this, but I don't: how fair/unfair the National Geographic Channel [not the magazine!] is in its treatment of the abortion issue. Having made that confession, I now add a caveat: I haven't seen a preview of "In the Womb," which will air March 6.

But reading the online promotion materials strongly suggests the program will educate in a highly life-affirming manner merely by showing the unborn courtesy of the remarkable new generation of three-and four-dimensional ultrasound imagery. Let me quote a few paragraphs from a piece written for the Channel by Brian Handwerk.

"It's almost a new science, in a way. It's taught us so much about how the fetus develops at an early stage," said Professor Stuart Campbell of the Create Health Clinic in London. Campbell, one of the world's leading experts in obstetrics, has been working with ultrasound technology since its earliest days and with so-called four-dimensional images since their debut about four years ago.

Four-dimensional imagery shows objects in 3-D moving in something close to real time. Doctors have long known that fetuses move, but the physical behavior revealed by 4-D scans is expanding that knowledge exponentially.

"We see the earliest movements at 8 weeks," Campbell said. "By 12 weeks or so they are seen yawning and performing individual finger movements that are often more complex than you'll see in a newborn," he said. "It may be due to the effects of gravity after birth."

The images reveal facial expressions, like smiling, at 20 weeks. Beyond 24 weeks fetuses may suck their thumbs, stick their tongues out (perhaps using newly developed taste buds to sample amniotic fluid imbued with the flavors of the mother's food), and make apparently emotional faces.

Campbell believes that ever improving imagery—particular ly the 4-D scans, which are inching ever closer to displaying real-time movement—represent s the tip of the iceberg for fetal-behavior study.

"I think we ought to study the behavior of the fetus prenatally," he said. "For example, we don't understand why cerebral palsy occurs in 90 percent of the cases it does, but we believe it occurs in the uterus. I think the future lies in first-trimester diagnosis. I can see diagnosing abnormalities in the first 12 weeks."

In what promises to be stunningly revealing developmental journey, we're told the program will show the unborn from her very beginning through the final months as we witness how "the fetus continues to grow and develop, how it behaves, how it reacts to stimulation and how its reflexes help it prepare for birth and survival outside the womb."

If that weren't enough to grab the viewer by the shoulders, "In the Womb" also shows an in-utero operation to correct life-threatening complications before birth.

 One final quote, and I'll be done:

"Each year across the world, approximately 130 million women go through the complex cycle of pregnancy and birth. Our increasingly sophisticated understanding of the process has drastically reduced the risks. Taking you from conception to the moment of birth, "In the Womb" sheds light on a delicate but dark place and takes viewers right into the fragile and mysterious world of fetal development."

The program will air Sunday, March 6, at 8:00 pm, Eastern Standard Time.

Narrow! Intolerant! Uncompromising! These are the epithets of odium hurled by Liberal votaries of all degrees at us Ultramontanes

[i.e., Roman Catholics or papists--literally: "beyond the mountains" for entrance to Italy from the continent of Europe requires traversing the Alpine Mountains, the highest in Europe. Thus, to Europe the Roman Catholic Church has its government, its head, its nerve center "beyond the mountains"].

Are not Liberals our neighbors like other men? Do we not owe to them the same charity we apply to others? Are not your vigorous denunciations, it is urged against us, harsh and uncharitable and in the very teeth of the teaching of Christianity, which is essentially a religion of love?

Such is the accusation continually flung in our face. Let us see what its value is. Let us see all that the word "Charity" signifies.

The Catechism [of the Council of Trent], that popular and most authoritative epitome of Catholic theology, gives us the most complete and succinct definition of charity; it is full of wisdom and philosophy.

Charity is a supernatural virtue which induces us to love God above all things and our neighbors as ourselves for the love of God. Thus, after God we ought to love our neighbor as ourselves, and this not just in any way, but for the love of God and in obedience to His law. And now, what is it to love? Amare est velle bonum, replies the philosopher. "To love is to wish good to him whom we love." To whom does charity command us to wish good? To our neighbor, that is to say, not to this or that man only, but to everyone. What is that good which true love wishes? First of all supernatural good, then goods of the natural order which are not incompatible with it. All this is included in the phrase "for the love of God."

It follows, therefore, that we can love our neighbor when displeasing him, when opposing him, when causing him some material injury, and even, on certain occasions, when depriving him of life; in short, all is reduced to this: Whether in the instance where we displease, oppose, or humiliate him, it is or is not for his own good, or for the good of someone whose rights are superior to his, or simply for the greater service of God.

If it is shown that in displeasing or offending our neighbor we act for his good, it is evident that we love him, even when opposing or crossing him. The physician cauterizing his patient or cutting off his gangrened limb may nonetheless love him. When we correct the wicked by restraining or by punishing them, we do nonetheless love them. This is charity--and perfect charity.

It is often necessary to displease or offend one person, not for his own good, but to deliver another from the evil he is inflicting. It is then an obligation of charity to repel the unjust violence of the aggressor; one may inflict as much injury on the aggressor as is necessary for defense. Such would be the case should one see a highwayman attacking a traveler. In this instance, to kill, wound, or at least take such measures as to render the aggressor impotent, would be an act of true charity.

The good of all good is the divine Good, just as God is for all men the Neighbor of all neighbors. In consequence, the love due to a man, inasmuch as he is our neighbor, ought always to be subordinated to that which is due to our common Lord. For His love and in His service we must not hesitate to offend men. The degree of our offense towards men can only be measured by the degree of our obligation to Him. Charity is primarily the love of God, secondarily the love of our neighbor for God's sake. To sacrifice the first is to abandon the latter. Therefore, to offend our neighbor for the love of God is a true act of charity. Not to offend our neighbor for the love of God is a sin.

Modern Liberalism reverses this order; it imposes a false notion of charity: our neighbor first, and, if at all, God afterwards. By its reiterated and trite accusations toward us of intolerance, it has succeeded in disconcerting even some staunch Catholics. But our rule is too plain and too concrete to admit of misconception. It is this: Sovereign Catholic inflexibility is sovereign Catholic charity. This charity is practiced in relation to our neighbor when, in his own interest, he is crossed, humiliated, and chastised. It is practiced in relation to a third party when he is defended from the unjust aggression of another, as when he is protected from the contagion of error by unmasking its authors and abettors and showing them in their true light as iniquitous and pervert, by holding them up to the contempt, horror, and execration of all. It is practiced in relation to God when, for His glory and in His service, it becomes necessary to silence all human considerations, to trample under foot all human respect, to sacrifice all human interests--and even life itself--to attain this highest of all ends. All this is Catholic inflexibility and inflexible Catholicity in the practice of that pure love which constitutes sovereign charity. The Saints are the types of this unswerving and sovereign fidelity to God, the heroes of charity and religion. Because in our times there are so few true inflexibles in the love of God, so also are there few uncompromisers in the order of charity. Liberal charity is condescending, affectionate, even tender in appearance, but at bottom it is an essential contempt for the true good of men, of the supreme interests of truth and [ultimately] of God. It is human selflove, usurping the throne of the Most High and demanding that worship which belongs to God alone.

What is socialism? We miss the boat if we say it's the agenda of those left-wingers and Democrats. According to Marxist doctrine, socialism is a stage of society between capitalism and communism where private ownership and control over property is eliminated. The essence of socialism is the attenuation and ultimate abolition of private property rights. Attacks on private property include, but are not limited to, confiscating the rightful property of one person and giving it to another to whom it doesn't belong. When this is done privately we call it theft. When it's done collectively we use the euphemisms: income transfers or redistribution. It's not just left-wingers and Democrats who call for and admire socialism but right-wingers and Republicans as well.

Republicans and right-wingers support taking the earnings of one American and giving them to farmers, banks, airlines and other failing businesses. Democrats and left-wingers support taking the earnings of one American and giving them to poor people, cities, and artists. Both agree on taking one American's earnings to give to another; they simply differ on the recipients. This kind of congressional activity constitutes at least two-thirds of the federal budget.

Regardless of the purpose such behavior is immoral. It's a reduced form of slavery. After all what is the essence of slavery? It's the forceful use of one person to serve the purposes of another person. When Congress, through the tax code, takes the earnings of one person and turns around to give it to another person in the forms of prescription drugs, social security, food stamps, farm subsidies or airline bailouts, it is forcibly using one person to serve the purposes of another.

The moral question stands out in starker relief when we acknowledge that those spending programs coming out of Congress do not represent lawmakers reaching into their own pockets and sending out the money. Moreover, there's no Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus giving them the money. The fact that government has no resources of its very own forces us to acknowledge that the only way government can give one American a dollar is to first through intimidation, threats and coercion take that dollar from some other American.

Some might rejoin that all of this is a result of a democratic process and it's legal. Legality alone is no guide for a moral people. There are many things in this world that have been, or are, legal but clearly immoral. Slavery was legal. Did that make it moral? South Africa's apartheid, Nazi persecution of Jews, Stalinist and Maoist purges were all legal but did that make them moral?

Can a moral case be made for taking the rightful property of one American and giving it to another to whom it does not belong? I think not. That's why socialism is evil. It uses evil means (coercion) to achieve what are seen as good ends (helping people). We might also note that an act that is inherently evil does not become moral simply because there's a majority consensus.

An argument against legalized theft should not be construed as an argument against helping one's fellow man in need. Charity is a noble instinct; theft legal or illegal is despicable. Or, put another way: reaching into one's own pocket to assist his fellow man is noble and worthy of praise. Reaching into another person's pocket to assist one's fellow man is despicable and worthy of condemnation.

For the Christians among us, socialism and the welfare state must be seen as sinful. When God gave Moses the commandment "Thou shalt not steal", I'm sure He didn't mean thou shalt not steal unless there's a majority vote. And, I'm sure that if you asked God if it's okay just being a recipient of stolen property, He would deem that a sin as well.

The man who helped push the issue of public education onto the national agenda  has written a new book that blows the lid off government schools, showing parents the kind of worldview and values their children are influenced by 180 days a year.

Bruce Shortt, author of "The Harsh Truth About Public Schools," presents myriad reasons why government institutions are failing America's children and thumbing their noses at parents with a religious worldview.

In "The Harsh Truth About Public Schools," Shortt, writing from a biblical perspective, presents rigorous research about the agenda and effect of government schooling on the nation's young people.

Shortt especially wants to educate Christian parents, millions of whom send their kids off to public school every day.

"Contrary to what many Christians have been led to believe, there is no such thing as a 'neutral' education," Shortt writes. "All education is religious and conveys a worldview, and there is no more important decision that we make as parents than how we educate our children."

Continues Shortt: "Unfortunately, Christian parents allow an aggressively anti-Christian institution to form the minds of their children, and the fruit of that choice is bitter. The overwhelming majority of children from evangelical families leave the church within two years after they graduate from high school; only 9 percent of evangelical teens believe that there is any such thing as absolute moral truth; and, our children are being forcibly indoctrinated to believe that homosexual behavior is acceptable."

While Shortt wants Christian parents who use the government schools to read the book, he also encourages homeschooling parents to read it.

"Homeschool parents must have this book to minister to their Christian friends and neighbors, pastors and skeptical relatives. Our government-school habit is sowing the wind, and unless Christians turn from this gross sin we will reap a whirlwind that is unimaginable," Shortt says.

In the book, Shortt documents the pitfalls of public schools, saying the anti-Christian thrust of the governmental school system produces inevitable results: "moral relativism (no fixed standards), academic dumbing down, far-left programs, near absence of discipline and the persistent but pitiable rationalizations offered by government education professionals."

Shortt also urges pastors to read the book so they might "understand why the church can no longer abdicate its historic role in the education of our children."

Says Short: "'The Harsh Truth About Public Schools' makes it clear why no Christian child should be left behind in government schools. Our Christian children are perishing because parents and pastors lack knowledge. The information in this book exposes the 'salt and light' and the 'our schools are different' rationalizations for educating Christian children in pagan schools for the contemptible falsehoods they are.

"Any parent or pastor who genuinely desires to be faithful in the education of Christian children needs to find out what the public schools are actually doing, rather than relying on what they are saying they are doing or on memories of the public schools as they may have existed 10, 20 or 30 years ago."

Shortt makes his argument by citing a school district in Texas.

"There is no public school district in the country that has more Christians in the community or in the schools than that of Plano, Texas," he said. "In fact, the largest and most powerful church in the state of Texas, Prestonwood Baptist, is located in Plano. Yet, it took a court order to force the Plano schools to allow Christian school children to privately give classmates Christmas gifts that had a Christian message. Moreover, the school district had even prohibited schoolchildren from bringing red and green napkins to the school 'holiday' parties for fear the colors might remind someone of Christmas.

"The truth is that the public school policy and curriculum decisions that matter to Christians are not made locally. They are largely dictated by federal and state court decisions, federal and state legislation and regulations, and the teachers' union and other professional associations connected with the public schools."

But what about reforming the public schools? Isn't that a solution?

Responds Shortt: "Public schools cannot be reformed to provide a Christian education, and the evidence is overwhelming that even conventional secular reforms to reinstate traditional academic and moral standards will continue to fail. But even if you think that we should nevertheless try to reinstate traditional academic and moral standards in the schools, taking your children out is the most effective thing you can do to help the children whose parents have left them behind in the public schools. Only the threat of a collapse of the entire public school system offers even the remotest prospect of positive change. Traditional reform efforts are a waste of time.

"Even if you believe that there is nothing wrong with institutionalizing Christian children in public schools, you need to read this book because you may be wrong. Remember, you only get one chance to educate your children. There are no do-overs."

Is there such a thing in rerum nature ["in the nature of things"] as a Socialist in good faith? In our day it seems almost impossible to reconcile Socialism with good faith, which is the only thing that can give it the shadow of excuse. It cannot, however, be denied that, absolutely speaking, there may exist under peculiar circumstances an exceptional case, but this will indeed be unique.

In the history of heresy we frequently find some individuals, even many, who, in spite of themselves, are dragged into the torrent of error for no other reason than their supreme ignorance. But it must be admitted that, if ever an error has been deprived of any excuse on this score, that error is Socialism as it exists today. Most heresies which have rent the bosom of the Church have attempted to disguise their errors under an exterior of affected piety. Jansenism, perhaps the most subtle of all heresies, won over a great number of adherents by its cunning simulation of sanctity. Its morals were rigid to the extreme; its dogmas formidable; the exterior conduct of its promoters ascetic and apparently enlightened. It wore the visage of a Saint, while at heart it reeked with the corruption of pride. The majority of ancient heresies turned upon very subtle points of doctrine, which only the skilled theologian could discern, and upon which the ignorant multitude could give no judgment, save such as they received in confidence from their leaders. By a very natural consequence, when the hierarch of a diocese fell into error, most of his subordinates--clerics and laity full of confidence in their pastor--fell with him. This was all the easier, owing to the difficulty of communication with Rome in ancient times, when the infallible voice of the Universal Pastor could not readily reach the flock in parts remote from the Chair of Peter. The diffusion of many ancient heresies, which were mostly purely theological, was nearly always due to this cause. Hence we find St. Jerome crying out in the fourth century: Ingemuit universus orbis se esse Arianum: "The whole world goaned to find itself Arian." This also explains how in the midst of great schisms and great heresies, such as the Greek Schism and Anglican heresy, there may be numbers of souls in whom the roots of the True Faith are not dead, although in its exterior profession this faith may appear deformed and vicious. Such was the case in England for many years after the rebellion of Henry VIII, and such, in some instances, is the case in our own times [1886], for the ready acceptance of the True Faith by many English converts of recent years bears ample witness to the vitality of the Faith in souls so grossly betrayed into heresy by apostate guides three centuries ago [i.e., in the 16th century]. Such souls, united to the Mystical Body of the Church by Baptism, by interior Sanctifying Grace, are able to gain eternal salvation with ourselves.

Can the same be said of Socialism? Socialism first presented itself under a political mask, but since its debut, this mask has become so transparent that blind indeed is he who cannot divine the perversity of such a miserable travesty. The veil of hypocrisy and pietism which some of its panegyrists first threw around it has been stripped off. The halo in which it was first depicted has shown itself to be, not the soft light of Heaven, but the lurid glare of Hell. It has gathered under its banner all the dregs of society, wherever corruption was its precursor and promoter. The new doctrines which it preached--and which it wished to substitute for ancient truth--had nothing abstract nor metaphysical; it rejected everything but brutal facts, which betrayed it as the offspring of Satan and the enemy of mankind. The terrors of the French Revolution were the evidence of its origin, as sprung from the corruptions of a society that had abandoned God and battened on the bestial results of Voltarian skepticism. No wonder it avoided the abstract and the metaphysical, to revel in the atrocious deeds of a bloody revolution [The French Revolution, 1789-1799], which proclaimed the absolute sovereignty of man against his Creator and the Church.

If such were the horrors of the birth of Socialism, what must be said of its odious development in our own day, when its infernal principles bask in the full light of the world's approbation? Never has an error been more severely castigated by the condemnation of the Church; never more accurately have those condemnations been borne out by the testimony of experience and history. When Protestantism is fast losing its power, sinking into the abyss out of sheer impotence, Socialism, even more formidable and more dangerous, fills the ranks of this decaying heresy with enemies still more resourceful, implacable and obstinate. Protestantism is now a dead dog; Socialism a living lion going about seeking whom he may devour. Its dreadful doctrine is permeating society to the core;

It has become the modern political creed and threatens us with a second revolution, to turn the world over once again to paganism. Are there any good Catholics who do not believe this? Let them but read the signs of the times, not with the eyes of the world, but by the light of the Faith, which Jesus Christ gave to them. "I am the way, the truth and the life," said our Divine Lord. "He that followeth me, walketh not in darkness, but shall have the light of life." (John 8:12). He who follows the Church follows Him, for He Himself said to the Apostles and their successors, "He who hears you, hears Me."

What then is the attitude of the Church towards Socialism? Is not its entire hierarchy considered hostile to Socialism? Does not Socialism itself bear witness to this? What does the word "Clericalism" with which the Liberals have honored those most energetically opposed to their doctrine, prove, if not that they regard the Church as their most implacable adversary? How do they look upon the Pope, upon bishops, priests, religious of all kinds, on pious people and practical Catholics? "Clericals" "clericals" always, that is, "anti-Liberals!" How then can we expect to find good faith on the part of a Liberal Catholic when orthodoxy is so distinctly and completely opposed to Socialism? Those who are capable of comprehending the principles of the question can readily satisfy themselves on its merits by its intrinsic reasons; those who cannot so comprehend have an extrinsic authority [The Catholic Church] more than sufficient to form an accurate judgment for them, such as it should be in every good Christian in matters touching the Faith. Light is not wanting; those who will, can see well enough. But alas! Insubordination, illegitimate interests and the desire to take and make things easy are abundantly at hand to prejudice and to blind. The seduction of Socialism is not of the kind that blinds by a false light, but rather by the seduction which, in sullying the heart, obscures the understanding. We may therefore justly believe, except perhaps with very rare exception, that it requires a very vigorous effort of charity to admit in our day, in accordance with true moral principles, the excuse of "good faith" in a Catholic who entertains Liberal principles.

Socialism is a mortal sin. But Catholic theology teaches us that all sins are not equally grave, that there is even a distinction of degree in venial sins. There are also degrees in the category of mortal sin, just as there are in the category of meritorious works. The gravity of sin is determined by the object at which it strikes.

Blasphemy, for instance, which directly attacks God Himself, is a sin of much graver character than theft, which directly attacks man. With the exception of formal hatred against God, which constitutes the deadliest of all sins and of which the creature is rarely culpable--unless he be in Hell--the gravest of all sins are those against faith. The reason is evident. Faith is the foundation of the supernatural order, and sin is sin insofar as it attacks this supernatural order at one or another point; hence that is the greatest sin which attacks this order at its very foundations. To destroy the foundations is to destroy the entire superstructure. To cut off the branch of a tree will not kill it, but to lay the axe to the trunk or to the roots is fatal to its life. Henceforth it bears neither blossom nor fruit. St. Augustine, cited by St. Thomas, characterizes sin against faith in these words: Hoc est peccatum quo tenentur cuncta peccata. "This is the sin which comprehends all other sins."

The Angel of the Schools [St. Thomas Aquinas] expresses himself with his usual clearness on this point: "The gravity of sin is determined by the interval which it places between man and God; now sin against faith separates man from God as far as possible, since it deprives him of the true knowledge of God; it therefore follows that sin against faith is the greatest of all sins."

When sin against faith is simply a culpable privation of the knowledge of God, it has not the same gravity as a direct and formal attack upon dogmas expressly defined by divine Revelation. In this latter case, sin against faith, so grave in itself, acquires that degree of gravity which constitutes heresy. It then contains all the malice of infidelity and becomes an express protestation against the teachings of faith or an express adherence to a teaching which is condemned as false and erroneous by the Faith itself. Besides the deadly sin against faith itself, it is accompanied by hardness of heart, obstinacy, and the proud preference for one's own reason over the reason of God Himself. Hence, heretical doctrines--and works inspired by them--constitute the greatest of all sins, with the exception of formal hatred against God, of which only the demons in Hell and the damned are capable. Socialism, then, which is heresy, and all the works of Socialism, which are heretical works, are the gravest sins known in the code of the Christian law.

Socialism is, therefore, a greater sin than blasphemy, theft, adultery, homicide, or any other violation of the law of God, save in such case as where one acts in good faith, in ignorance, or without thought.

It is true that modern naturalism does not so regard or understand the case. But the law of the Church in matters of morals and doctrines is unchangeable; it ordains today as it did yesterday, and heresy is always heresy, no matter what the shape it takes. Appearances may be fair, and the devil may present himself as an angel of light.

The danger is the greater as the outward show is more seductive. Heresy has never been so insidious as under its present form of Socialism. Its range is so wide that it touches upon every note in the scale and finds an easy disguise in its protean facilities. But its most fatal shaft is in its plea for "liberality of mind." This, in its own eyes, is its cardinal virtue. "Intellectual freedom from dogmatism" is its boast, a boast in reality the mask of ignorance and pride. To meet such an enemy requires no ordinary courage, which must be guarded by a sleepless vigilance. When encountered, it is obligatory upon the Catholic conscience to resist it with all the powers of the soul. Heresy and all its works are sins; Socialism is the root of heresy, the tree of evil in whose branches all the harpies of infidelity find ample shelter; it is today the evil of all evils.