The fact is, however, that we never really had a debate — at least not informed debate — on how abortion is the greatest exploiter of women and destroyer of families in Canada.  And yet, amazingly, the media and the pro-abort gurus in this country simply refuse to allow the debate to rise to a mature level. They foolishly dismiss the growing chorus of Canadians who are demanding change in the abortion industry to allow humane laws for the treatment of defenseless babies in the womb.   But as the slogan says, women will be silent no more.  Led by the tragic witness of women who have undergone abortion and are now having the courage to speak out about its cruel and largely silent legacy, the debate about abortion is going to be had with or without the consent of the pro-abort establishment.  The story of the exploitation of women will be told.

The large swath of people who blanketed Parliament Hill listened to speeches by politicians of the Pro-Life Caucus, including Rod Bruinooge’s short appeal to support his Private Member’s Bill,  Bill C-510. The bill seeks to protect pregnant women from intimidation and pressure to have an abortion against their will.  On the official website, Bruinooge explains that the legislation is inspired by the case of Roxanne Fernando, who was murdered by her boyfriend in 2007 after she refused to abort their baby.  The fact is that Bruinooge’s Bill is aimed at protecting a visible minority — pregnant women — who are in real and immediate danger in Canada because of abusive boyfriends who don’t want to be saddled with the responsibility of raising a child.  This Bill would deter thugs from taking out their rage on pregnant women and aborting these vulnerable women and their babies.  Feminists don’t support pregnant women who want to keep their babies — that’s why they oppose tougher sentences for the thugs. It protects their so-called right to abort, even if it means other women are left unprotected by the law to maintain that “right”.

The fact is that opposing abortion in Canada is no longer a losing proposition for politicians.  Yesterday, EKOS’s latest poll showed the Conservatives have significantly increased their popular support across the country to 33.6%.  And that is after the maternal health care-abortion drama was inflicted on the country. It turns out that – EUREKA! – the Conservatives did not lose any support. In fact, their recent discovery of a backbone on this question did just the opposite, and I’m sure it surprised even them.  This is a huge political break for the pro-life movement because it shatters the myth that Conservatives can only be hurt by supporting pro-life laws.  In fact, socially liberal politicians are the not the hottest commodity today in Canada.  They are a liability.

The reality is that abortion is yesterday’s “solution” to pregnant women.   Today, the kids want real choices for unintended pregnancies — ones that provide support, encouragement, love, understanding, and tangible help.   Not the murder of innocent babies and a lifetime of suicidal thoughts and ruined lives.  And while the opposition is shrill, angry, and increasingly frustrated as their political capital keeps getting eroded away year after year as pro-lifers begin to win political victories, they show their paranoia in the things they say, making themselves appear more out of touch with the mainstream.  In fact, as I marched down the streets, the expressions on people’s faces were a little different this year.   More and more of the public is on our side.  But even of the non-supportive public, things are changing indeed.  We used to get angry or blank stares.  Today, the expressions are much more reflective and deliberating.  Even the pro-abort protestors seem somewhat more shaken in their opposition.  It looks like they are starting to believe that we are moving into the mainstream and they are moving out. And when those reactions start to happen en masse, folks, you can call for the Fat Lady and cue her because it won’t be long before she sings.

The March for Life continues.  The future is ours. The momentum is ours.  And victory shall be ours too.

In a culture like ours, long accustomed to splitting and dividing all things as a means of control, it is sometimes a bit of a shock to be reminded that, in operational and practical fact, the medium is the message. This is merely to say that the personal and social consequences of any medium — that is, of any extension of ourselves — result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology” (Understanding Media, Marshall McLuhan 7).

McLuhan’s observation is that the message is the change of scale or pace that a new invention or innovation introduces into human affairs.  Within the context of our current technological age, this observation becomes a critical element in reversing the decline in Christian civilization and the erosion of conservative, moral values.

When our attention turns to the media and its profound impact on our culture, we quickly realize the inherent connection between the media, our mythology, and the culture at large.  It is the media, including film and television productions, in particular, which effectively controls our culture’s mythology, and thus sets standards of morality and virtue (or lack of them) for our society. The corrupting influences that have become popular in the West have been fuelled by the ability of liberals to rapidly and effectively disseminate their ideas to the general public. They have done so with the use of the media’s massive reach, and, unfortunately for our culture, without an effective response by conservatives.

Because the media has such a powerful influence over our culture — and thus the way people think and express themselves — it is far more effective and dynamic than much Christian evangelization or an intellectual conservative argumentation. By indoctrinating people on an emotional and, one might say, through a superior incarnational medium, our opponents have been able to communicate their ideology and effectively drown out other mediums and voices.

Indeed, conventional evangelization and academia are not, by their very nature, well equipped in today’s experiential and phenomenological culture to influence and persuade the masses.  On the other hand, because its foundation rests on this “experience principle”, entertainment via mass media outreach is far more influential and successful in accomplishing cultural and moral shifts in society.

In fact, the importance of the media was so critical to evangelization in the modern era that the Second Vatican Council fathers included a decree on this subject among the relatively modest 16 documents they authored. In her “Decree on the Media of Social Communications” (Inter Mirifica), the Church was keen to recognize the impact the cinema and other mass media can have on society:

The most important of these inventions are those media which, such as the press, movies, radio, television and the like, can, of their very nature, reach and influence, not only individuals, but the very masses and the whole of human society, and thus can rightly be called the media of social communication. The Church recognizes that these media, if properly utilized, can be of great service to mankind, since they greatly contribute to men’s entertainment and instruction as well as to the spread and support of the Kingdom of God” (Inter Mirifica, 1-2).

Recognizing the immense responsibility the Church has in this regard, the decree went on to implore that “all the children of the Church should join, without delay and with the greatest effort… to make effective use of the media, and to invite those organizations and individuals who possess financial and technical ability to support these media freely and generously with their resources and their skills, (Inter Mirifica, 13,17).  In particular, the decree singled out cinema as being particularly important to this goal:

The production and showing of films that have value as decent entertainment, humane culture or art, especially when they are designed for young people, ought to be encouraged and assured by every effective means. This can be done particularly by supporting and joining in projects and enterprises for the production and distribution of decent films, by encouraging worthwhile films through critical approval and awards, by patronizing or jointly sponsoring theaters operated by Catholic and responsible managers (Inter Mirifica, 14).

One only has to take notice of the current Harry Potter phenomenon to understand the breadth and depth of the entertainment media’s scope.  Not so long along ago, the late great Bishop Fulton J. Sheen was able to captivate and sway American culture because he was successful at doing two things: firstly, using the media to reach a critical mass of the population on prime time television and, secondly, presenting himself in such a way that he was entertaining to watch.  Not only was he the evening entertainment for adults, but he was seen by children as heroic simply because he wore a cape.  Consequently, his presence and heroism was projected back on the Church which, in turn, influenced the morality of millions.

In fact, recapturing the mythology and controlling the media is far more important and urgent than many other worthwhile ventures that are typically associated with Christian activism.  Activities such as education, political activism, charity, and other worthwhile ministries receive the vast majority of Christian and conservative attention and financial support. Yet, despite the financial resources invested into them, the culture of death remains largely in tact, and continues to exact a terrible price on our society.

The reason for this condition is because we have failed to realize that these activities, however noble and good they are, do not represent the soil itself but rather only seed.  The soil in our time is the mythology; it is the entertainment and the heroes of the age.  And as Jesus alludes to in one of His parables, without good soil, the seed will not take root and grow as it should.

By first capturing the imagination and defining the heroes of a culture through fiction and entertainment, and then translating that success through the various media outlets to propagate the message, a whole civilization can be moved. Controlling the mythology and the media, therefore, is the only viable and far-reaching strategy for taking our culture back and restoring Christian civilization.

[Editor's note: The author is currently involved in a project with a Catholic film-maker friend to start producing Catholic/Christian/family-oriented movies.  If you are interested in learning more or how you can help with this project, contact him at pacheco377(at)gmail.com.]

These modernist thinkers believed society should borrow the concepts of biological Darwinism to solve societal problems by imposing the process of natural selection on the socially inept. Of course, unlike its biological sister, the facilitation in Social Darwinism would be the State rather than nature, which would ensure, through legislative measures, that the biological product would evolve as planned. Ironically, however, Charles Darwin (1809-1882) did not understand how his biological theory could be applied to the social and political arenas, but that did not seem to bother German social and political Darwinists, including Karl Marx, from doing so. Darwinism became a convenient and predominant vehicle for monopolistic and exploitive individuals to advance their agendas in all spheres of human society — science, academia, politics and business.

Treacheries

The underlying principle in Social Darwinism is, of course, the belief in eugenics. The first person to broach the subject was Thomas Malthus (1766-1834), whose opinions provided the precursor to Social Darwinism in the twentieth century. Malthus posited that the ‘breeding habits of the lower classes of society’ would cause overpopulation, and therefore would threaten the food supply. He believed that draconian measures were necessary to curb the population growth by denying the poor all charity, therefore forcing them to curb their ‘breeding habits’. (Of course, the idea of food scarcity due to alleged overpopulation is a myth, and science itself has exposed that myth many times over. Roger Revelle, former director of the Harvard Center for Population Studies, estimated that world agricultural resources are capable of providing an adequate diet for 40 billion people while underdeveloped countries alone are capable of feeding 18 billion people.)

If Thomas Malthus was the “father” of eugenics and population control, the “mother” of the movement was Margaret Sanger, the admitted racist and founder of the International Planned Parenthood Federation. Her contemporaries included many academic elite who were part of a number of “International Congresses of Eugenics”. Winston Churchill, himself, was vice president of the First Congress in London in 1912. The third international congress in 1932 included a call for the sterilization of 14 million Americans with “low intelligence-test scores.”

As a vigilant promoter of eugenics, Sanger recommended “a stern and rigid policy of sterilization and segregation to that grade of population whose progeny is already tainted, or whose inheritance is such that objectionable traits may be transmitted to offspring.” Her counterpart in Britain, Marie Stopes, preferred a decidedly less diplomatic assessment: “…society allows the diseased, the racially negligent, the thriftless, the careless, the feeble-minded, the very lowest and worst members of the community, to produce innumerable tens of thousands of stunted, warped, and inferior babies.” Of course, Margaret Sanger was not known for sugar coating her words unlike many contemporaries of the great society. The devout atheist would have made the Nazis blush. She had little respect for the democratic process, decrying that “a moron’s vote [is] as good as the vote of a genius.”

Sanger and her collaborators set the stage for the current war on the population by the United Nations. The U.N. initiated a number of population and development conferences, beginning in Rome in 1954. The second conference was held in Belgrade in 1965. Unlike the Rome conference, fertility was viewed as a policy variable in Belgrade, representing a seismic shift within the framework of the fertility issue. At the Rome conference, family size was accepted as a basic human right to be exercised within the family. In Belgrade, on the other hand, parental rights to decide the question of family size was to be influenced within “social and international context.”

The third international U.N. World Population Conference was held in Bucharest in 1974, and produced an activist agenda. The conference made evident the widening polarization between the first and third worlds. Industrialized countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and others saw population as an impediment to the development of the third world, while governments of the poorer countries viewed population growth as a consequence rather than the cause of impediments to development. Of course, the rationales of the wealthier nations were surely vicarious — the real issue was their control of the underdeveloped nations, which population growth threatened. If population control was not checked quickly, the existing world economic Goliaths might lose their privileged position by forfeiting their control of poorer countries’ natural and human resources.

The Population Controllers were impeded somewhat during the Mexico City conference in 1984. In this conference, thanks to the policies of the Reagan administration, the Unites States voiced serious concerns regarding human rights violations, specifically insisting that abortion not be utilized as a method of family planning. The Population Controllers were not amused. During the Cairo conference in 1994, the vehicle chosen to carry population control requirements was euphemistically called “women’s empowerment” — the code phrase ideology underlying feminist movement in the West. Needless to say, many of the developing countries’ delegates resented the push for universal access to “safe and legal abortion” which they believed, among other points, to threaten their national sovereignty. They rightly pointed out that population growth was needed in order to develop their resources — which naturally threatened the West’s current control. Of course, the Copenhagen and Beijing conferences in 1995, the Istanbul conference in 1996, and the Rome conference on Food in 1997 all helped to accelerate the exceedingly aggressive U.N. feminist agenda. The war was over code words and euphemisms such as “sustainable development” (i.e. zero population), and “reproductive health services” (i.e. abortions and contraceptives).

In fact, the world population is indeed in crisis, but it is not one of overpopulation but rather one of underpopulation. In fact, the G-7 countries (U.S., Canada, Italy, France, Britain, Japan, and Germany) along with at least 79 other nations have fertility rates well below the mere replacement level (2.2 children per couple) for a population. The industrialized world is dying, and this is a major crisis that has been purposely ignored by state planners. Take a good, long look at Canada’s growing ageing population and then look at the economics of trying to support them with a dismal fertility rate of 1.5 children per couple. It doesn’t take a Ph.D. in economics to realize there is going to be an interesting paradox in Canada in a few years, namely, remaining a “progressive,” contraceptive nation while having to recognize and admit to the serious underpopulation problem in the country.

Readers may recall that immigration is a very important issue to the Parti Quebecois in Quebec. Ever wonder why? Well, the population growth rate of Quebec was 0.8 children per couple just a few years ago, well under the replacement level of 2.2. If you want to preserve the French language in Quebec and your own people have an abysmal fertility rate, then immigration becomes an important area to control and wrestle away from the Federal government. To control immigration is to control the future of your language and culture. It is the pinnacle of irony that the contraceptive ideology that Quebec embraced during the Quiet Revolution of the 1960′s is the very instrument that is preventing it from accomplishing its political, secessionist goals. Indeed, the pill has done more to quash nationalism than any Federalist could ever do. The fact that Quebec politicians have been so absurdly blind to this reality may be more due to design than to chance.

The world has been exposed to the “culture of death” for over thirty years. And what has been the result? It is unnecessary to go any further than the very prophetic but ignored encyclical of Pope Paul VI, Humanae Vitae (Of Human Life) released in July, 1968. This encyclical is, in my opinion, the most important non-inspired document ever written by human hands. I wish to quote it at some length here simply because it describes the situation today so eerily well:

Upright men can even better convince themselves of the solid grounds on which the teaching of the Church in this field is based, if they care to reflect upon the consequences of methods of artificial birth control. Let them consider, first of all, how wide and easy a road would thus be opened up towards conjugal infidelity and the general lowering of morality. Not much experience is needed in order to know human weakness, and to understand that men – especially the young, who are so vulnerable on this point — have need of encouragement to be faithful to the moral law, so that they must not be offered some easy means of eluding its observance. It is also to be feared that the man, growing used to the employment of anticonceptive practices, may finally lose respect for the woman and, no longer caring for her physical and psychological equilibrium, may come to the point of considering her as an instrument of selfish enjoyment, and no longer as his respected and beloved companion.

Let it be considered also that a dangerous weapon would thus be placed in the hands of those public authorities who take no heed of moral exigencies. Who could blame a government for applying to the solution of the problems of the community those means acknowledged to be licit for married couples in the solution of a family problem? Who will stop rulers from favouring, from even imposing upon their peoples, if they were to consider it necessary, the method of contraception which they judge to be most efficacious? In such a way men, wishing to avoid individual, family, or social difficulties encountered in the observance of the divine law, would reach the point of placing at the mercy of the intervention of public authorities the most personal and most reserved sector of conjugal intimacy” (Humanae Vitae, 17).

There are a number of passages in the New Testament that are rather enigmatic at first glance, but there is a deeper and much more profound meaning if the passage is reflected on carefully. The fig tree which Jesus “condemned” for not bearing fruit comes to mind. Another instance occurs during Our Lord’s passion: “And when they led Him away, they laid hold of one Simon of Cyrene, coming in from the country, and placed on him the cross to carry behind Jesus. And there were following Him a great multitude of the people, and of women who were mourning and lamenting Him. But Jesus turning to them said, ‘Daughters of Jerusalem, stop weeping for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For behold, the days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed’” (Luke 23:26-29).

For the next nineteen hundred years, this prophecy had yet to be fulfilled. But in the twentieth century, can it scarcely be argued that the world does not say to her daughters, “blessed are the barren”? In the Christian Church, unnatural birth control had always been condemned. In fact, for 1,930 years the entire Christian Church — both Catholic and Protestant — stood together unanimously condemning unnatural means of birth control. Martin Luther called artificial contraception “sodomy” while John Calvin referred to it as murder. However, when the Church of England finally acquiesced to Sanger in 1930, the gates of hell were flung wide open, and it was only a matter of time until the other Protestant Churches fell on this question as well.

Tykes and the Trinity

The gravity of the situation can surely not be emphasized enough. Indeed, the mere fact that the survival of the human race itself is in question leads one to look to the flagitious spiritual condition of Gaia’s children. St. Paul’s observation in this mammoth battle provides invaluable illumination on this point: “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12). This spiritual war is not so much man against men, but Satan’s war against God. Humanity represents, in many ways, simply the pawns in a great chess match over the salvation of souls. Lucifer wishes to devour and deprive man of his great destiny which is to enjoy God’s presence forever. Yet, the manner in which he does so has a theological basis to it since his objective is to warp the very essence and image of God Himself.

Christianity understands God in the Trinitarian tradition. The creeds teach that there is one God, but there are three distinct persons in God. Now many people have difficulty in understanding the Trinity which, admittedly, is not the easiest of concepts to grasp, and it goes without saying that we will never be able to comprehend it fully in this life. Nevertheless, it will not do to simply leave the matter there, assigning it exclusively to the ‘mystery’ part of our religion.

The Bible says that man is made in the “image of God.” If we truly are so made, then it follows that we must have individually or collectively a likeness to His Trinitarian essence. Such a similarity is found in the human family itself which approaches the likeness of the Trinity. The Trinity is one just like a family is one. The Trinity consists of three persons as a human family consists of more than one person. The Trinity is ‘of the same substance’ while a human family shares the same substance: “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh…” (Genesis 2:23).

There is also another element in the Trinity that lends itself to human likeness. The Nicene Creed professes this about the Trinity: “We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life who proceeds from the Father and the Son.” Now what exactly does this mean? Well, Catholic theology understands the Father as God knowing Himself; the Son as the expression of God’s knowledge of Himself; and the Holy Spirit as the result of God’s knowledge of Himself. The Father ‘looks’ at the Son and the Son ‘looks’ at the Father. They behold in one another their mutual divine goodness and beauty. The love between the Father and the Son “generate” (not create as there is no creation of God) another person, whom we call the Holy Spirit. And so, the Holy Spirit is love “proceeding” or “coming from” the first two persons of the Blessed Trinity.

The human family has, of course, a rather striking parallel to this. The ultimate act of intimacy in a marriage mirrors the eternal procession of the Trinity since the act of love itself “generates” another human being. (Generation is probably even a better term to describe the act than “to create” since humans can create nothing — only God can, and so the analogy is closer to the Trinitarian relationship than one might have originally assumed.)

It is, therefore, not difficult to see that, in many ways, God is a “family of persons,” and the Trinity is not as unfamiliar to us as once believed.

One may inquire what the Trinity has to do with the oppressive anti-life policies of many world governments and international government bodies like the United Nations. If we discern the kind of ideology which Satan has duped humanity into accepting, it quickly becomes apparent that it is an anti-Trinitarian one, represented by divorce, contrception, abortion, and euthanasia. The devil wishes to attack God by attacking the Trinitarian elements of the family. His first success was the slow but certain progress of the eradication of the “severe” divorce laws, thereby undermining the unity of the family. The second triumph involved repealing the “oppressive” abortion laws and promoting the contraceptive mentality, which of course, both serve to block the eternal procession of love which generates another person. In unnatural forms of birth control, not only is this divine procession of love rejected, the fruit of a man and woman’s love, the child, is rejected as well. Finally, the most current assault against the family is to kill the elderly who may be just a little too burdensome. While divorce is an attack on the unity of the family, and abortion and contraception are attacks on the procession of love within a family, euthanasia involves primarily an attack on the person based on his or her utility to the family. This utilitarianism is, of course, the underlying premise behind the Social Darwinist dogma.

Children are indeed the hope and fulfilment in the family and for the world just as the Holy Spirit is the fulfilment of the God-head and the hope for a spiritual re-awakening. There is a saying that “children are God’s way of telling us that the world should go on”, but the converse is true as well: “the attack on life and family are the devil’s way of telling us that the world should NOT go on.” The war which is raging in the world today between those who want to see the dignity and inestimable worth of every person recognized and those who see the human person as merely an utilitarian instrument for self-gratification will continue until the end of the world. There is no reason that it should stop now, it has been going on since the world’s very beginning.

I will put enmities between thee and the woman; and thy seed and her seed: he shall crush thy head and thou shalt lie in wait for his heel (Genesis 3:15).

The Plenary Assembly described the encyclical as a “prophetic document,” especially in view of “the troubling evolution of two fundamental human institutions, marriage and the family.” The message of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) goes on to say that the family and marriage “continue to be affected by the contraceptive mentality feared and rejected in the encyclical of Pope Paul VI.”"Nevertheless, Humanae Vitae is much more than a ‘no to contraception,’” the Bishops insist. Citing the encyclical, they point out that “It proposes a vision of the whole person and the whole mission to which each person is called.” The CCCB message describes the encyclical as “an invitation to be open to the grandeur, beauty and dignity of the Creator’s call to the vocation of marriage.

“The Bishops of Canada point out what they say is an important link between Humanae Vitae and the “theology of the body,” developed by Pope John Paul II between 1979 and 1984. These reflections of John Paul II are a “pedagogy” to help appreciate the theological and pastoral significance of Humanae Vitae, they say. The Bishops observe that in marriage, the “act of flesh, the gift of bodies,” expresses “the totality of the gift of the persons, the one to the other,” by which “the man and the woman are, in the flesh, the image of the divine Trinity.” The CCCB pastoral letter points out that in the words of Pope John Paul II, “by means of its visible masculinity and femininity, the body, and it alone, is capable of making visible what is invisible: the spiritual and the divine.”

In their message, the Bishops of Canada also call for a more profound reflection on married life and on the meaning of sexual intercourse. “Catholics and all men and women of good will” are encouraged to reflect on both in the light of Humanae Vitae and the “theology of the body.” “Sexuality is a friend, a gift of God,” they state. “It is revealed to us by the Trinitarian God” who invites Christians and others “to reveal it in turn in all its grandeur and dignity to our contemporaries at this start of the third millennium.” (Source)

The Canadian Bishops have produced a fine document, marking the 40th Anniversary of Humanae Vitae.  You can read the entire text here.

It is a sorely needed document to help re-establish the Church’s teaching on contraception in Canada, which has, for the past 40 years, been shaped by the heretical Winnipeg Statement and whose 40th anniversary tomorrow (Sept.27) we also mark.

I couldn’t help chuckle at this paragraph:

3. Indeed, how can we fail to recognize its prophetic character when we consider the troubling evolution of two fundamental human institutions, marriage and the family? Both continue to be affected by the contraceptive mentality feared and rejected in the encyclical of Pope Paul VI. And what can be said of the future demographic deficit confronting Western societies? 

How sad that the bishops didn’t recognize Humanae Vitae’s  ”prophetic character” when they wrote the Winnipeg Statement 40 years ago. It would have saved our society much pain, suffering, and death now and well into the forseeable future.  It was an epic disaster of epic proportions.

I very much doubt that we will ever see a formal retraction of the Winnipeg Statement now.  But, at least, its ”teaching authority” can hopefully be trapped in those 40 years from September 27, 1968 to September 26, 2008.  Let’s hope that no one ever opens that pandora’s box again.

Ultimately, The Rosarium wanted the Canadian Church to reflect the teaching of Rome.  This document now does that.  For the 40 years previously, the Canadian Church’s position on birth control did not reflect the teachings of Rome. But there is nothing we can do about the past.  Those responsible for creating and promoting and defending the Winnipeg Statement will have to give an account at the Judgement.

Although our end game was to get the Winnipeg Statement retracted, there would have been a void with a simple retraction. This Statement does 2 things:  1) it makes the Winnipeg  Statement obsolete and therefore powerless and 2) it fills this void with a strong teaching document.

In some ways, it’s a victory for us. Because they didn’t even mention the Winnipeg Statement, it’s almost as if they weren’t even acknowledging it. In the past they’ve always tried to justify its “interpretation”.   There was none of that this time around.

The Winnipeg Statement is now in the trash heap of history, suspended in time during those 40 years.  Pastoral documents, by their very nature, are restricted to their time. They are not a doctrinal statement per se. Pastoral documents are binding until they are later 1) withdrawn or 2) superceded. We received #2.  And I’ll take that to the bank any day.

I’m not sure how much influence The Rosarium had in the end, but I’d like to think it was a modest influence.  God bless Msgr. Vincent Foy’s faithfulness these past 40 years for holding the line and being a thorn in the side of the bishops by his constant witness.  He is a true priest of God, if there ever was one.  Also to be thanked are the nearly 2000 people who signed our petition. Their prayers did not go unanswered.

The Rosarium will be making an official statement in the near future.

In the mean time, break out the champagne, pop the cork and let’s celebrate! 

The Winnipeg Statement is dead.

Thanks be to God.

The first time I heard that one of my co-workers was scheduled to have an abortion, I was shocked. As the days ticked away and the scheduled abortion was looming over her, my conscience started to prick me.

Although I felt uncomfortable approaching someone about this subject at my place of employment, it was not the fear of losing my job or even broaching the subject that made me uncomfortable. I simply did not know what to say. I didn't want to bungle it, but I knew that I was probably the last chance for that unborn child.

I gathered myself and set out toward her office. I knocked on her door, stepped in the office, and closed the door behind me.

"Maggie, I hear that you're pregnant and are going to have an abortion. Is this true?"

"Yes", she said.

"Listen, I want to help you. If it's money, I'll help you as long as it takes."

"No", she said. "It's not the money. I just can't handle another kid right now. I have four children already by three different men."

And so the conversation continued. At the end of it, she was crying.

I gave her a hug and repeated my offers to help. She appreciated it and kissed me on the cheek.

"Please don't do it", I said. "Don't give up hope. Trust in God."

The next day, she had her abortion. A few months later, she left the company.

Her replacement too became pregnant. However, she was pregnant with twins and the doctors recommended that she abort one of them.

I was not that keen to get involved again given my previous experience, but I knew that I had to try. As the days came closer, I tried to approach my co-worker, but something would always come up, or I would start to do it and then bail out.

On the day before her scheduled abortion, I was at home. "Oh well, just wasn't in the cards, eh, God? Did my best. Time to move on."

Not quite. My conscience wouldn't let me get away with such a lame excuse so I picked up the phone and called the office. When it rang through to her line, I breathed a sigh of relief as I got her voice mail.

"Hi Linda. Can you call me when you get a chance?"

I figured there was a 50/50 chance she would call back.

There was a part of me that was hoping she wouldn't call back. Call it reputation. Call it meddling. Call it human pride. I didn't know what to call it. I was kind of hoping that I could just give it the old college try but wouldn't have to go through with it.

As I sat there holding the phone, it suddenly rang, sending a nervous anxiousness down my spine.

"Oh. Oh. Now what do I say?", I asked myself.

"Hello?"

"Hi John, this is Linda."

"Oh, hi, Linda. How are you doing?"

A short pause.

"OK, I guess. I am just about to leave. What can I do for you?"

A longer pause on my end as I scrounged my brain for some kind of work-related pretense I would be calling for. I quickly thought of something that I had asked of her a couple of days ago. After she answered my question, there was another short pause.

"Is there anything else?"

A long pause on my end.

"No."

"Are you sure?" Her voice almost sounded like she needed to talk to someone about the abortion.

"No, I am sure."

"Okay. Bye"

"Bye."

As I heard the click of the phone and the monotone on the other end, I closed my eyes and pondered how I could be such a coward.

FEAST OF THE HOLY INNOCENTS

Archbishop Luigi Ventura,
Apostolic Nuncio to Canada
724 Manor Avenue
Ottawa, ON KIM OE3

Your Grace,

For the past five years, I have been involved as a Catholic activist in the Ottawa area. In this time, I have represented and acted on behalf of thousands of people in Ottawa and around the country.  For this communication to you, however, I choose only to speak on my own behalf as a husband and a father of four young daughters.

The purpose of this communication is to bring to your attention the recent comments of Fr. Raymond Gravel, a Catholic priest who was given permission to enter politics by his Bishop, Most Rev. Gilles Lussier of the diocese of Joliette. Fr. Gravel is an elected member of Federal Parliament for the Repentigny riding in Montreal.

Let me first begin by expressing my astonishment as to why Fr. Gravel is even being permitted to hold a political office despite an explicit prohibition of such activity in the Church's Code of Canon Law (Can. 285 §3). It is my understanding that such a prohibition might be overidden by the local bishop provided that there is some serious necessity for the "protection of the rights of the Church or the promotion of the common good" (Can. 287 §2).  I could certainly understand if Fr. Gravel was permitted to stand for public office to denounce abortion or same-sex "marriage".  This indeed would be a valid exception to the rule, envisioned by Can. 287 §2 above.  After all, it would be very edifying indeed in today's culture of death to have a priest running for political office with the express intent of defending the right to life, religious freedom or expounding on the Church's teaching on the common good.  However, in the case of Fr. Gravel, his past comments and actions (a sample of which I have appended below) have clearly demonstrated that not only is he not interested in furthering Catholic social teaching, but that he openly acts and speaks against it. I fail to see, therefore, why Fr. Gravel is permitted to scandalize not only the Catholic faithful but the Canadian public as well.

Fr. Gravel's latest scandalous comments relate to proposed legislation which provides protection for the unborn (in the case of a pregnant woman who is murdered). Speaking in Parliament, Fr. Gravel acknowledged that the murder of a pregnant woman is abominable. "But," he added, "at the same time when the fetus is still in the mother they're just one being. It's only when the fetus is born is when it becomes another being, when it becomes a human being" (Source).  Not only do these comments have no basis in basic biology, it is, as you well know, a heretical statement to assert that the fetus and mother are "one being".  As one simple proof, if Fr. Gravel's assertion were true, the dogma of the Immaculate Conception would be false.

Speaking as a father, it is clear to me that the willingness to discipline is a prerequisite to a father who loves.  It is the delinquent father who refuses to discipline because he couldn't be bothered with the turmoil and conflict that sometimes arises because of it.  And a father unwilling to endure conflict for the sake of his children's well being is a father who does not love his children.   We should expect, as children of the Church, that our spiritual fathers, the bishops, would be vigilant in maintaining some semblance of discipline among their priests. And yet, in the case of Father Gravel, not only do we see no discipline being applied against him after his outrageous conduct, his very own bishop allows him to spread his errors outside of the church and throughout the general population.  Not content with corrupting the Body of Christ, Fr. Gravel has a new career and a new audience to apply his trade.

I want to express my deep appreciation to the Holy Father for his past intervention (while he was still a Cardinal) in attempting to end Fr. Gravel's scandalous witness.  I respectfully submit that his Holiness should once again intervene " this time as Pope and with his full apostolic authority and jurisdiction " to end the scandal caused by Fr. Gravel.   Fr. Gravel's bishop has not fulfilled his duty in this regard as Fr. Gravel's scandals continue unabated with no foreseeable end in sight. Therefore, the solemn duty to reprimand Fr. Gravel publicly now rests with the Holy See.

I want to express to you in the strongest sentiment possible that Fr. Gravel's scandal is not acceptable to me or my family, much less the unborn.  

Rest assured of my prayers for your faithful mission to our country in union with St. Peter's successor.

Yours in Our Sovereign Lord and King,

John Pacheco

_____________________________________________

Some of the past comments that have been attributed to Fr. Gravel:

In a letter published in La Presse in August 2003, Fr. Gravel wrote that the Church's stand "is discriminatory, hurtful and offensive, not only for homosexuals" (Source).

Father Gravel, a priest at Saint-Joachim de La Plaine parish in the diocese of Joliette, made the following comment on June 20, 2004 on the French-language radio program SRC Dimanche Magazine (CBC-French's Sunday Magazine): "I am pro-choice and there is not a bishop on earth that will prevent me from receiving Communion, not even the Pope" (Source).

Fr. Raymond Gravel was the spokesperson for a group of nineteen priests in Quebec who signed a letter denouncing the Catholic Church's teaching on homosexuality. The nearly 1000 word missive rejected both the Canadian Conference of Catholic bishops submission to Parliament and the Vatican's documents on the issue of homosexuality. Published in La Presse on February 26, 2006, under the headline "Enough is enough", the letter takes issue with the Church's official teaching that the homosexual tendency is disordered, suggesting that the teaching contributes to "homophobia", and is grossly outdated (Source).

The Concerted Attack on Human Dignity

In the early Church, too, theological battles were very common as competing sides fought over the famous christological and mariological issues of the time. The Trinity, the divinity of Jesus, His human and divine natures and wills, the virginity of Mary and her identity as theotokos were all hotly-contested theological controversies fought and won by the Catholic Church.

Needless to say, theological controversies among Christians and between Christians and non-Christians will exist until the Second Coming of Christ when they will be, thankfully, settled once and for all. While these disagreements are still very important in the religious realm, their relevance in the current culture war has fundamentally changed.

In the past, the attacks on the Catholic Faith came through the aforementioned theological questions. Today, while these attacks still remain — and in some cases have even intensified — they have been upstaged somewhat by a new and pernicious menace. The new heresy, which some are now calling “Genderism,” seeks to recreate man away from his divine origin into a mere human invention.

The war being waged in our modern culture is over this very question. The major issues of today — abortion, contraception, euthanasia, divorce, invitro-fertilization, cloning, stem-cell research, and same-sex “marriage” — all involve, at some fundamental level, a direct attack on the dignity and image of the human person as created by Almighty God. This conflict is particularly heated in the case of so-called “gender-identity” issues in which proponents of radical feminism or gay “marriage” have tried to argue that gender is mutable.

The Church rejects this position as a perversion of God's revelation concerning man and his nature. The Church teaches that in man, God created one human nature with two distinct and complementary relational expressions of that nature. These expressions, what we know as “male” and “female,” are not merely tangential or incidental characteristics of our human nature, but are intrinsic and fundamental to it.

We know this to be true because this relational expression is reflected in the physiological features of the male and female bodies which, although sharing the same flesh (Cf. Gn 2:23), are nonetheless distinct from one another in their physical appearance. The physiological composition of the male and female bodies — far from being incidental or transitory — is a reflection of a person's inner psychological nature. A man's genitalia, for instance, shows him that his human nature is expressed as a male with all of the attendant traits of masculinity which flow from it. The characteristics corresponding to masculinity naturally engender him to assume a certain role in relation to a female who, corresponding to her phsyiology, has a different yet complementary psychology.

The male and female cannot insist on playing the same role in their relationship with one another for the simple reason that their human natures are not precisely the same, at least insofar as the expression of that nature is concerned. It would be analogous to a nut and bolt wanting to fulfill the same function in the operation of a mechanical device. If they both insisted on doing so, the machine would break down. And this is precisely what has happened to marriage in the latter part of the twentieth century. Similarly, gay “marriage” advocates fail to realize that two nuts or two bolts will also fail to work because the intimacy required for success in coupling success demands complementarity, not uniformity.

The clamor for gay “marriage” and the push for the legitimacy of gay sex is rooted in radical feminism's blurring of the unique and distinct personalities inherent in the male and female sexes. Radical feminism and the “gay rights” agenda are nothing more than two sides of the same coin, much like communism and materialist capitalism are rooted in the same philosophical system which sees man as a mere commodity, either of the state (communism) or of himself or another (capitalism).

As the distinction between men and women becomes more distorted, their traditional roles within the family unit are likewise further confused. With the advent of contraception and the widespread acceptance of sterility, this confusion has logically led to the acceptance of same-sex unions. When women relinquish their fertility and assumed the roles traditionally filled by men, they give up much of what expresses their distinction from men so that, in men's eyes, they become functionally little different than other men. This has led to the acceptance of homosexuality in popular culture.

The Spousal Character of the Body

In his recent letter dealing with the Collaboration of Men and Women in the Church, Cardinal Ratzinger stresses the unique and irreplaceable elements of both sexes and notes that being male and female is an immutable expression of the human person. He writes:

Sexuality characterizes man and woman not only on the physical level, but also on the psychological and spiritual, making its mark on each of their expressions. It cannot be reduced to a pure and insignificant biological fact, but rather is a fundamental component of personality, one of its modes of being, of manifestation, of communicating with others, of feeling, of expressing and of living human love. This capacity to love — reflection and image of God who is Love — is disclosed in the spousal character of the body, in which the masculinity or femininity of the person is expressed. (“Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Collaobaration of Men and Women in the Church and in the World,”

The very capacity to love, the cardinal says, is expressed through the “spousal character of the body.” In other words, if masculinity is not tied to the male body or femininity to the female body, as the Church's opponents claim, then people will discover that their capacity to love will be obscured and gravely wounded.

Genderism has sought to create a contradiction between the “spirit” (i.e. the relational expression of sexual differences) and the “flesh” (i.e. physical expression of sexual difference). This false dichtomy between the spirit and the flesh is but another dimension of the first century heresy known as Gnosticism. Instead of declaring flesh “evil” like the early Gnostics did, however, the new Gnostics merely designate the flesh as arbitrary and divorce its masculine or feminine traits from their psychological counterparts.

His Eminence also rightly points out that human nature itself cannot be sterile, and because of that, it requires a relational dimension to its existence:

Formed by God and placed in the garden which he was to cultivate, the man, who is still referred to with the generic expression Adam, experienced a loneliness which the presence of the animals is not able to overcome. He needs a helpmate who will be his partner. The term here does not refer to an inferior, but to a vital helper. This is so that Adam's life does not sink into a sterile and, in the end, baneful encounter with himself. It is necessary that he enter into relationship with another being on his own level. Only the woman, created from the same “flesh” and cloaked in the same mystery, can give a future to the life of the man. It is therefore above all on the ontological level that this takes place, in the sense that God's creation of woman characterizes humanity as a relational reality. (Ibid., 6)

The document goes on to further explain that this “relational reality” is not merely a static, detached relationship, but rather a relationship which rises to the level of interdependence: “In the unity of the two,” the prefect writes, “man and woman are called from the beginning not only to exist 'side by side' or 'together,' but they are also called to exist mutually 'one for the other'…. The text of Genesis 2:18-25 shows that marriage is the first and, in a sense, the fundamental dimension of this call” (Ibid., 6).

Indeed, this teaching on the relational reality of both sexes being called to exist mutually for the other points to a fundamental truth of the limitation and interdependence of either sex. In its natural expression, man cannot propagate the human race alone. He needs, as the Bible says, a “helpmate.” With this realization, man recognizes that he is limited and finite. His dependence on his wife is a reminder of his greater reliance on God Himself who is the infinite and unlimited source of life.

In contrast to this, the opposing feminist-gay world view does not believe that both partners exist mutually for the other. In feminism, a woman is not dependent on a man. She is independent of him and merely relates to a man as she pleases. She uses him as a commodity to fulfill her base, materialistic pleasures (and he uses her). Similarly, under the homosexual rubric, there is no context of existing “for the other” since the relationship's physiology does not correspond to this language. In fact, the physiological language of gay sex points in the opposite direction, where the participants are attempting to join two uniform expressions of the same nature, and therefore, on an ontological level, seek to exist for “themselves.” This is why gay relationships are so unstable — because there is no inherent sense of “existing for the other” as there is in a normal heterosexual marriage.

In Whose Image?

According to the Book of Genesis, the human person is revealed to be made in the very image of God: “So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them” (Gn 1:27). In the account of creation, not only does God reveal to us that man's image is a reflection of the divine essence, but we learn that in creating man, God created one image with two distinct expressions of that image. These two distinct expressions of our human nature are as important to Christian theology as the two wills in Christ's person. Indeed, the modern attack on these two expressions is a form of gender “monotheletism” — the seventh-century heresy which sought to reduce Jesus's two wills to only one. In the same way, radical feminism has sought to blur and even negate the distinction between the male and female expressions in human nature.

While feminism began in response to legitimate grievances to promote prospects for equality of women, it has evolved a new theory of the human person in an effort to seek liberation from ”biological determinism.” In its latest stages, it has inspired ideologies which call into question the family in its natural two-parent structure of mother and father, and make homosexuality and heterosexuality virtually equivalent — what Cardinal Ratzinger calls “a new model of polymorphous sexuality.”

Indeed, the central question of our time concerns authentic human dignity and how it is defined. On the one hand, secular culture views man's intrinsic nature as malleable and replaceable. The culture's materialistic and consumerist philosophy has translated the human person into a mere product of consumption. Since the human body itself can be harvested, destroyed, or manipulated to serve selfish and perverse ends, the physical characteristics that are specific to either gender are consequently seen as tentative and optional.

The Church, in opposition to this lethal view, upholds the sanctity and inalienable constitution of the human person and believes that there can be no separation between the physical characteristics of the human body with the associated psychological and spiritual elements of it. In other words, male genitalia must correspond to a male psychology. This is why Cardinal Ratzinger highlights the fact that “male and female are thus revealed as belonging ontologically to creation and destined therefore to outlast the present time, evidently in a transfigured form. In this way, they characterize the 'love that never ends' (1 Cor 13:8), although the temporal and earthly expression of sexuality is transient and ordered to a phase of life marked by procreation and death” (Ibid., 12).

In God's infinite love for us He became “one of us” at His incarnation. This incarnation represents the sacramental dimension which vivifies the teaching that man is created in the image of God. God fulfilled this teaching by showing man that not only would God Himself become man to save him, but also that man's destiny is to partake in God's own divine nature (Cf. 2 Pt 1:4). At the moment of the Incarnation, when the divine person of the Son of God assumed a human nature, human nature itself was sanctified. Through baptism we become united mysteriously with Christ's divine nature. Jesus has therefore united Himself to all men through His incarnation and His baptismal marriage to us, and therefore any attack on man becomes an attack on God Himself.

As the current culture war continues to rage, all of the Church's efforts to combat the culture of death must be brought forward. To defeat this ominous threat to mankind's existence, Christians must learn to cooperate with one another despite our theological differences. We must work towards a common “life ethic” which can serve as a unifying beacon of light and a common front against an increasingly darkened and hostile world. When the boat is sinking, there is no time to fight over who is manning the helm. The important thing is to get to work and start bailing.

(John Pacheco is a Financial Analyst and a Catholic apologist who writes from Ottawa, Canada, where he lives with his wife and three daughters. He is the founder and editor of Catholic-Legate.com, a Canadian lay apostolate of Catholic apologetics.)

Even real estate is not immune. “When real estate companies realized that the gay consumer had disposable income, that was when things started to change,” said Adam Thompson, managing broker at Rainbow Realty Corporation in Elmhurst, Illinois, which specializes in working with gay clients. In fact, the gay community has substantial power in terms of disposable income when compared to other minority groups. “The projected spending power of the gay and lesbian segment of the population — about 15 million people — for 2003 is $485 billion,” said Stephanie Blackwood, a New York marketing executive. “That's compared to the Hispanic segment, which is $653 billion, but gays and lesbians are nearly a third the size of the Hispanic segment.”

As one reporter keenly remarked about the gay rights clamor in the industry, “in real estate, though, the issue of gay rights is more akin to an age-old business practice: follow the money.”

That same corporate philosophy is found in the abortion and contraception industries. Pharmaceutical companies make billions of dollars on contraceptive pills and devices at the expense of broken marriages, broken lives, and, with the advent of abortifacient pills, the broken bodies of dead women.

Follow the Money

Closer to home in North America, the current debates raging around sexuality are predicated on the so-called “right to privacy” which was further advanced by the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade. The “right to privacy” certainly had an unassuming and harmless ring to it outside of the abortion controversy, but as we are now discovering, it is becoming quite universally ferocious and lethal. Indeed, the “right to privacy” has become a toxic euphemism for an imposed sexual anarchy — an anarchy which is leading to the demand for submission to and acceptance of debased sexual behavior. Those who resist will face the consequences.

While the clamor for human rights and imposition of the gay and pro-abort lifestyle will no doubt continue, it is important to understand that the real power and establishment of our cultural denouement does not rest with a fervent yet misguided philosophy. The battle in the culture of death is not really about human rights or morality or even religion.

It is about money and profit.

It is about the corporate pimps who profit from the promotion of the gay lifestyle at the expense of not only society at large but the gay community in particular. The great irony in this façade is that while the gay agenda tries to push the human rights card to gain legitimacy, “straight” sex hustlers are making a mint from their target market while concurrently watching AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases decimate a whole segment of society. They are unconcerned about gays and human rights or even human beings. They want gay money, and they’re willing to sacrifice their patrons in order to get to it. Here is a testimony of a formerly active gay man who confirms this indictment:

Let me begin with a few thoughts on the gay world, one of the progressive leftwing’s hobbyhorses, and something I know a great deal about. The gay world is something I once energetically and enthusiastically supported and even helped to build…. A movement that once served to emancipate people has now turned on its own, and through a combination of bald-faced hypocrisy and utter denial is literally killing hundreds of thousands. The AIDS crisis, just in North America alone, has now killed over a half-million gays. That's more than the total number of American GIs killed in all of WWII, all theaters combined. In fact, the crisis is one of almost genocidal proportions.

Of the 20 or so people who once formed my entourage back in the early 80s 15 have died. And the statistics bear this out: gays have shorter life spans than their straight counterparts, they have higher rates of alcoholism, drug addiction, suicide and venereal disease. That's the real, honest story of the gay world, a story few care to recount. Now what is the reaction of gay advocacy groups, some of whom I used to work for, when faced with these facts? Their reaction is one of intense hostility and an even more intense denial. Let me explain why this is so.

The gay community is a very wealthy constituency. We've got money to burn and whole industries have grown up around us because there are just gazillions of dollars up for grabs. But how does one market to gays? The answer is easy: one attaches “sex” to every product and service aimed at the community. Trust me on this one; the gay world is absolutely inundated with sex. Bars, restaurants, nightclubs, saunas, pubs, taverns — all are marketed through sex. Now if this gigantic economic machinery is to continue turning, sex has to be promoted and even exalted. It’s crucial, if profits are to be maximized, to never allow people to question or to even debate the role of sex in the gay community.

It is not difficult to connect the dots mapped out by this testimony, and see that it does indeed draw a fairly accurate picture of the gay sexual revolution. Disney, for instance, has been front and center in cashing in on “gay rights” with their infamous “Gay Days.” Does anyone really believe that Disney is concerned with “human rights” of gays? Disney is a multi-billion dollar business which caters to constituencies that have larger disposable income. One of those constituencies is gay couples who typically are well educated, well paid, and have no children. In fact, almost every industry whose products rely on targeting persons with high disposal income would be remiss, from a financial point of view, to ignore the gay community. That is why over the past decade, beer companies, the entertainment world, clothing companies, and other industries have developed whole divisions with the express purpose of raking in gay money.

Abortion Clinics Oil the Wheels of Congress

Just recently a former Republican counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Manuel Miranda, related how the recent filibustering by Democratic Senators to disrupt Presidential judicial nominations was not about a euphemistic “woman’s right to choose” at all. It was all about money and abortion profits:

“The axis of profits that undergirds the fight in the Judiciary Committee is the axis between trial lawyers — who want particular types of judges who rule in particular ways on their cases — and, not the 'abortion rights' lobby, but the abortion clinics lobby. “The 'abortion rights' lobby is just a front for something much worse, which is the abortion clinics' lobby, represented by the National Abortion Federation.”

According to Miranda, abortion clinics make $1,000 profit for every abortion they perform so the commonly-believed idea that there is no “big money” behind the Democrat motivation is a misconception: “The abortion clinics' lobby is an industry as large as any industry that lobbies in Washington…the enormity of the money that is behind the Democratic push is astounding and shocking.”

An evil culture cannot grow unless there are major players making a profit off of it. Money and power fuel a wicked culture. The majority of corporations who enter into the arena of “human rights” do so because it serves their bottom line. And this is aptly demonstrated in the issues of gay and abortion “rights.” Successful businesses use popular human rights campaigns to serve their corporate interest, but in this case, what is “good for business” destroys their clients’ lives. Little wonder that St. Paul lists the greedy right along with the immoral among those who will not inherit the kingdom of God (cf. 1 Cor 6: 9, 10).

(John Pacheco is a Financial Analyst and a Catholic apologist who writes from Ottawa, Canada, where he lives with his wife and three daughters. He is the founder and editor of Catholic-Legate.com, a Canadian lay apostolate of Catholic apologetics.)

There are also atheistic governments which oppress and persecute the Catholic Church for her teachings on sexual morality. In the past, these governments were primarily communist or fascist in ideology. Today, sadly, most western governments purporting to be “democratic” are also opposing and persecuting the Church’s right to religious freedom.

While this characterization is certainly true in many respects, it does not express where the real war is being fought. In fact, the aforementioned wars are merely incidental to the root of the culture war. In fact, the real war — the “dirty secret war,” as I call it — that is being waged is not outside of the Catholic Church, but within her very bosom. And it is over the issue of contraception.

This war found its apex and triumph early, during the sexual revolution of the 1960s. And for the next forty years, this pernicious dissent against human life has been wreaking havoc and destruction on the Church, the family, and civilization. We are only now reaping the tragic consequences of this sterilized cultural wasteland begun four decades ago. For instance, some European nations are now even offering couples over $1,000 U.S. to have a second child!

While this war is indeed fought within the Catholic Church, it nonetheless impacts all of civilization because, as the Church goes, so goes society. No other cultural and social institution has as much influence and moral capital as the Catholic Church has. If our enemies can thwart the propagation of truth, if they can massage it to render it impotent, if they can manipulate, twist, and undermine it, the Enemy outside her sacred boundaries can triumph for an indefinite period of time.

The war for the Church's very soul is not being waged on conventional grounds with a conventional enemy. In the West, it is not a matter of easily identifying the local government thug who seeks to impose his atheistic and hedonistic values on the local peasant population. No. Here, in the “civilized world,” we are fighting a guerrilla war unlike no other war in the history of civilization. And a key plank to the success in this war is smoking out the enemy within our own ranks: the dissent from Humanae Vitae. If this particular dissent is eradicated, the culture of death will fall like a house of cards. It cannot stand.

On September 27, 1968, at the conclusion of their plenary assembly held at the Fort Garry Hotel in Winnipeg, Manitoba, the bishops of the Catholic Church in Canada issued a statement in response to Pope Paul's encyclical on human life, Humanae Vitae. It was entitled “Canadian Bishops' Statement on the Encyclical Humanae Vitae” — since then becoming known as The Winnipeg Statement. After the release of the Statement, Douglas Roche of the Western Catholic Reporter synthesized the obvious and apparent reading of the Statement's controversial text: “The issue is over in Canada. Catholics are free to use contraceptives if their informed conscience so prompts them.” A number of major players surrounding the controversy appear to agree with Roche’s assessment.

The Unconscionable Conscience Clause

Msgr. Vincent Foy, who has worked tirelessly over the past thirty years to revoke the Statement, concurred: “The world-wide perception was that the Canadian Statement was in rebellion against the pope's encyclical.” Father Edward Sheridan, S.J., one of the theological consultants present during the deliberations, wrote: “The Statement contained no general profession of assent to the whole teaching of Human Life; and nothing that could be interpreted as adding the local authority of the Canadian Hierarchy to that of the encyclical in general” (America, October 19, 1968, p. 349). But perhaps one of the most candid admissions came from Bishop Alexander Carter, President of the Canadian Bishops' Conference in 1968, who stated: “We faced the necessity of making a statement which many felt could not be a simple 'Amen,' a total and formal endorsement of the doctrine of the encyclical — we had to reckon with the fact of widespread dissent from some points of his teaching among the Catholic faithful, priests, theologians, and probably some of our own number” (America, October 19, 1968, p. 329).

Far from being restricted to Canada's borders, the Statement's capitulation to contraception reverberated throughout the world. Dissenters from many countries trophied the Statement to justify their rebellion against the pope and his encyclical. The central dissenting theme of the Statement was disseminated far and wide by the progressive theocrats. Fr. Anthony Wilhelm's book, Christ Among Us, was distributed throughout the English-speaking world with the imprimatur of Bishop Gerety of Newark, New Jersey. Three million copies of this book, which cited the more problematic parts of the Statement, were distributed before the Holy See ordered the bishop to rescind the imprimatur. Many other books and teaching sources parroted the message of The Winnipeg Statement, which caused disastrous results for the Church and society.

The most explosive and damaging part of the Statement appeared in paragraph 26 which reads:

Counselors may meet others who, accepting the teaching of the Holy Father, find that because of particular circumstances they are involved in what seems to them a clear conflict of duties, e.g., the reconciling of conjugal love and responsible parenthood with the education of children already born or with the health of the mother. In accord with the accepted principles of moral theology, if these persons have tried sincerely but without success to pursue a line of conduct in keeping with the given directives, they may be safely assured that, whoever honestly chooses that course which seems right to him does so in good conscience.

It goes without saying that while this particular paragraph does not explicitly say it is permissible to contracept, it is difficult to construct a more obvious representation. This stands in stark contrast to Pope Paul VI's encyclical. Humanae Vitae was very clear that contraception could not be accepted in any circumstances and that his prohibition was absolute in scope:

Therefore, We base Our words on the first principles of a human and Christian doctrine of marriage when We are obliged once more to declare that the direct interruption of the generative process already begun and, above all, all direct abortion, even for therapeutic reasons, are to be absolutely excluded as lawful means of regulating the number of children. (Humanae Vitae, 14)

John F. Kippley makes this very blunt assessment of paragraph 26 of the Statement: “A more misleading statement would be hard to imagine. There are no principles of moral theology that allow a person to engage in actions taught by the Church to be objectively immoral, whether such actions be adultery, contraception, fornication or sodomy. And, of course, what applies to one behavior applies to all the rest.” (Sex and the Marriage Covenant, the Couple to Couple League, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1991, p.145.)

Repent and Believe the Gospel

The Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, has repeatedly denounced contraception in many of his addresses and writings (cf. Familiaris Consortio, 32; Letter to Families, 12; Evangelium Vitae, 13; Gaudium et Spes, 51; see also the Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2370). He has steadfastly and consistently reiterated the Church's position:

Contraception is to be judged objectively so profoundly unlawful, as never to be, for any reason, justified. To think or say the contrary is equal to maintaining that in human life, situations may arise in which it is lawful not to recognize God as God. (Pope John Paul II, L'Osservatore Romano, Oct. 10, 1983).

By refusing to respect or acknowledge God's created order, we thwart God's reproductive design and purpose for our bodies. Contraception is a distortion of God's design and purpose since it seeks to recreate the purpose of our bodies and its functions for disordered sexual gratification. In so doing, each spouse deceives the other by pretending their bodies should not do what God has intended. It is also the language of cowardice and despair which is against God's language of love and trust in His supreme Providence. Those who contracept fail to realize that the sexual act is, above all else, an act of faith expressed through conjugal bodily relations. For married couples in particular, the act of faith is not merely an intellectual assent or even an act of love directed toward another person. Rather, it is most perfectly demonstrated by extending an invitation to God to be present within the marital embrace.

The time has come for the Catholic Church in Canada and her leaders to face the truth and begin the process of spiritual healing we so desperately need. Retracting The Winnipeg Statement is a good first step so that the Church in Canada may be shown the light on the biggest lie of modern times. In order to do this, Canadian Catholics need to be in genuine agreement with Rome on this issue. As contraception seeks to withhold full participation and assent within the marital embrace, so too has the Winnipeg Statement represented the withholding of full participation in the pope's teaching. The Statement is, for lack of a better term, “ecclesiastical” contraception that blocks the good seed of truth in the words of the pope from finding its reception in the hearts of the faithful and bringing forth the fruit of holiness.

In hopes of obtaining the goal of full communion with Rome on the issue of human life, a Canadian movement called The Rosarium is seeking the retraction of the Winnipeg Statement. It is a movement of lay men and women, along with priests and religious, who are joining forces to remove this cancerous tumor from the Body of Christ. Interested readers can find out about this movement by visiting its website.

In 1978, Pope Paul VI gave his last sermon in St. Peter's Basilica. In confirming his stance on human procreation, he said three times, “I did not betray the truth.” Now, it's time for the Canadian hierarchy to have the courage to say the same thing, and then actually follow through by retracting The Winnipeg Statement. The ecclesiastical contraception must end before conjugal contraception ever will.

© Copyright 2004 Catholic Exchange

(John Pacheco is a Financial Analyst and a Catholic apologist who writes from Ottawa, Canada, where he lives with his wife and two daughters. He is the founder and editor of Catholic-Legate.com, a Canadian lay apostolate of Catholic apologetics.)

Third, the Declaration's opponents say that the Church is implicitly approving other religious professions by allowing their followers the civil right to publicly profess their faith. Yet, the fallacy in this reasoning rests in a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of freedom. Freedom is a good because it preserves the dignity of God since man chooses Him before all else and without compulsion. By man’s complete and uncoerced choice for God, God is glorified by an immortal being (man) who has chosen God completely for His own sake. It stands to reason, therefore, that if man is to choose God, he must be able to explore the truth about God unencumbered. He may begin with a very false understanding of God and fully experience the shortfall that inevitably comes with the error. If he is vigilant in his search, he will one day find the true God in the true Church. But the point here is that he must be allowed to make that journey freely and publicly. To thwart his journey would cause his human nature to rebel against his suppressor and stunt his inquiry, or even stumble him away from a serious inquiry into the Faith if the members of that Faith are acting dishonorably.

While the Declaration is called Human Dignity, its ontological foundation does not rest on human dignity per se. Rather, it rests on the dignity and glory owing to the Creator. Because man is created with an immortal soul, his ultimate destiny and purpose is directed to God. His whole dignity and worth, therefore, is predicated on the value which his Creator places on him. Being created in His likeness, man retains the dignity and honor which comes with this, not the least of which is sovereignty over his will and actions. This is why God permits the most horrendous crimes mankind inflicts on itself. He respects our choice because He respects His creation. Thus, man’s moral right to be free is directly proportional to the glory which God receives from the choice that man makes.

The Church cannot advocate a civil right if it does not have a moral right as its foundation. For without a moral right, there can be no licit civil right. A moral right to exercise his opinion in religious matters is the same thing as saying man has the freedom to choose. This exercise is a good in the sight of God because it allows God to accept man’s choice of Him above all else. It is in this open and free relationship that glory is given to God. Such a choice, therefore, is properly termed a “right” since it is an inherent part of man’s dignity. While it is true that any particular choice in religious matters may not be a right, nevertheless such a choice is to be tolerated in order to uphold man’s freedom.

The fundamental underlying basis for religious freedom rests on the dignity which God affords to man. Before any appreciation can be given to submitting to the truth, there must be a mechanism — a mechanism which respects his intrinsic dignity — to allow man to arrive at that truth. In one fundamental respect, the moral right to religious freedom comes before the obligation to submit to the truth once it is found. To suppress religious expression — even erroneous religious expression — does not and indeed cannot be seen as an authentic response to the call to submit to the truth in freedom.

© Copyright 2004 Catholic Exchange

(John Pacheco is a Financial Analyst and a Catholic apologist who writes from Ottawa, Canada, where he lives with his wife and two daughters. He is the founder and editor of Catholic-Legate.com, a Canadian lay apostolate of Catholic apologetics.)

Nothing Less than Free and Unencumbered

In the Catholic faith, we understand this practically through the sacrament of marriage. As we all know, one of the essential conditions of a valid marriage is the free and unimpeded consent of both parties to the marital bond. No party to a marriage wants his beloved to be coerced or immorally influenced into the bond. To do so would be to destroy the complete and total union of what marriage is supposed to be: a free and whole sacrifice to the other person of body, soul, and mind.

Since the sacrament of marriage is a reflection of how God Himself relates to us, He expects nothing less from His creation if it wishes to commune with Him. Hence, like us, God insists that His Bride (the members of the Church) be free to enter the spiritual marriage covenant with Him.

In order for this fullest expression of love to be authentically manifested, both persons in the relationship must therefore be free and un-coerced to choose the beloved. Marriages are initiated when one lover proposes to another: Will you accept me to be your spouse? Yet, the joy and fulfillment resulting from consent draws all of its significance and power from the lover’s entirely free and unencumbered decision. Anything less will simply not do.

The Garden of Eden is a perfect example of God giving Adam and Eve the total and complete freedom to either choose Him or to reject Him. This is why in creating our first parents God told them:

“You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die” (Genesis 2:16-17).

In other words, while they were free to eat from any tree, there were still mortal consequences of eating of the tree of knowledge. In this passage, we see that freedom in itself is a positive good willed by the Creator. In fact, we see this freedom emphasized in the very next chapter.

“Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as He was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man, “Where are you?” (Genesis 3:8-9

Of course, God knew where Adam and Eve physically were in the garden of Eden. By asking such a question, Scripture is trying to teach us the gift of freedom which is intrinsic to us as persons. God plays “dumb” in order to emphasize the sovereignty we have over our own wills. Hence, without a genuine human freedom to act and profess one’s belief, the whole foundation of the Christian faith is undercut. Our faith presupposes man is both free and culpable for all of his actions. In the case of our first parents, we see that God respected their choice in rejecting His commandment. He did not inhibit their sin or coerce them into remaining in His love. He let them act freely.

In acknowledging man’s freedom to act, the question of religious freedom is of paramount importance since it has a direct bearing on how Catholics are to approach and evangelize the world. Since our vocation as Catholics is to share the Good News of Jesus Christ, we are called to invite non-Catholics into our familial communion with God as symbolized by the divine marriage between Christ and His Church. And because our relationship to God is characterized as a marriage between God and His people (Song of Solomon 4:11, Rev. 21:2), we are to respect the freedom that God’s potential spouse has been granted — either to reject Him or to accept Him.

In the decades following the Second Vatican Council and the promulgation of the Declaration on Religious Liberty (Dignitas Humanae), there has been much controversy on how to reconcile this declaration with previous Church teachings on the objective necessity of non-Catholics to convert to the Catholic faith. In particular, criticism has been raised that the Declaration is too “man-focused.” The Declaration, its critics say, neither adequately addresses the objective necessity of converting to the Catholic Faith, nor satisfactorily condemns the idea that “any religion is as good as another.” Furthermore, it leaves the impression, these critics maintain, that the Church is promoting, at least implicitly, objective theological and even moral error through its promotion of civil freedom of religion.

A Moral Duty Carried Out in Freedom

Yet, contrary to these claims, the Declaration explicitly answers the first two charges at the very beginning of the document:

So while the religious freedom which men demand in fulfilling their obligation to worship God has to do with freedom from coercion in civil society, it leaves intact the traditional Catholic teaching on the moral duty of individuals and societies towards the true religion and the one Church of Christ. (DH, 1) [emphasis mine]:

In this one sentence, the Declaration not only rejects the idea of religious relativism by affirming the objective necessity to convert to the Catholic faith, but it also touches on the very reason why the Declaration was issued; namely, to assert that man has a right to religious freedom, and that the actual meaning of this phrase “has to do with freedom from coercion in civil society.”

The Declaration implicitly affirms many biblical and Catholic principles. First, it reflects God’s dealings with our first parents. God gave Adam and Eve the same freedom that the Church is seeking within civil society. It affirms the truth about the Catholic faith, and binds all persons to seeking after the truth since there is a moral compulsion to do so. Yet, the Declaration also affirms that there is no absolute compulsion to embrace that truth (DH,11). We can understand this distinction more fully when we remember our Lord's discussion with the rich young man:

As Jesus started on His way, a man ran up to Him and fell on His knees before Him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”…”Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” At this the man's face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth. Jesus looked around and said to His disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!” (Mark 10:17-23)

In this scene, our Lord affirms that salvation must always remain a free and un-coerced offer to a person. In seeking to protect this important principle, the Church has wisely recognized that each person must be in a position where his choice is not unduly influenced by civil means. Practically speaking, this means that everyone is free to worship according to their consciences without the threat of veiled persecution and discrimination. Since the Church wishes to preserve our Lord’s offer of salvation, she must work against those forces which seek to pervert the offer into an imposition. For the Church’s witness to the gospel to be fully received and embraced, there can be no bastardization of the gospel by having the State enforce policies which cause resentment and alienation among non-Catholics. For then, the Church’s mission in challenging modern man becomes even more difficult. Moreover, the Church can appeal to its Declaration when she dialogues with repressive regimes and ideologies which seek to undermine or even exterminate the Catholic Faith. In upholding man’s right to religious freedom, the Church’s enemies cannot justify their religious repression under the pretense of “combating error.” In short, our enemies cannot appeal to a means which the Church herself rejects, namely, taking civil action to repress religious error.

Second, the Catholic view of justification sees human merit, responsibility, and culpability as indispensable elements of God’s plan. Without genuine freedom, these ideas lose any relevance or significance in Catholic teaching. In opposing such freedom, the Church would become an obstacle to God’s intention for the human person. Man has been created with complete autonomy in either accepting or rejecting the fullness of truth found in the Catholic Faith. And precisely because this autonomy is divinely granted to every person and intrinsic to his very being, it cannot be suppressed in any forum — either private or public. Therefore, any human law which seeks to detract from man’s inherent dignity through political, social, or religious means is really an attack on the Creator’s design for man.

When these obstacles are removed, however, there might be a temptation by some to believe that man’s freedom exonerates him from moral culpability. But it is just the opposite: the removal of these obstacles places a grave weight of moral (not absolute) compulsion on all persons in society. For then, there can be no excuses or pretenses for seeing the Church as “repressive” or “despotic” in suppressing religious freedom. With the promulgation of the Declaration on Religious Liberty, the Church has obliterated these lies and pretenses so that man is both free and responsible to consider the offer of salvation.

No longer can the Church’s enemies count on a perceived fear and domination accompanying the Catholic Faith’s propagation. The Church has pulled the rug out from beneath them, and given us a formidable evangelization weapon in confronting an anti-religious, bigoted western culture. Instead of seeing the Declaration as a capitulation to liberalism, we should consider this document an effective defensive armor against an increasingly hostile culture. In the past, the Declaration was used against communist and other dictatorial political structures when they tried to suppress the Catholic Faith. But now in the western democracies, an increasingly visible anti-Catholic sentiment is confronting us. It is only a matter of time before our own freedom of religion is challenged by “hate crimes” legislation and other creative “civil rights” concepts. When the supreme courts of our democracies consider applying “hate crime” laws against professing Catholics because they speak out against homosexuality, where will the Church turn to protect the rights of professing Catholics? It will turn to this Declaration.