Inspired by the supposed injustice of it all, self-righteous liberal elites and their malleable minions (composed largely of irreligious malcontents in search of a cause) are actively engaged in what may best be described as a battle against gender-specificity; most especially as it relates to suppressing maleness and the damnable characteristics common to those whom they hold in contempt for subjugating generations of innocent women to lives of homemaking and motherhood.

Emboldened by their misguided convictions, liberal social engineers are hell bent and determined to see to it that society doesn’t allow a healthy sense of maleness (e.g., attributes like competitiveness, protectiveness and leadership) to take hold in the next generation of husbands and fathers; ergo their deliberate effort to discourage the development of authentic masculinity in male children from boyhood to adolescence.

If we’re honest, we must admit that they have enjoyed no small measure of success.

With K-thru-12 schoolyards from sea-to-shining-sea boasting a bumper crop of soft-bellied boys who have been raised to believe that every incident of normal youthful conflict is best resolved by mommy in a parent-teacher meeting, the time was apparently ripe for launching a corresponding ersatz crisis; namely, that dreaded social epidemic known as “bullying.”

This relatively recent brainchild of leftwing propagandists threatens to rival the climate change hoax in terms of creativity, but that’s not the only thing these causes celeb have in common.

Both of them began with an age-old, well known fact of life (the climate is in flux / kids are often cruel) and then cloaked it in alarmist language (“the world is about to end” / “thousands of gay adolescents are facing death”) so it could be broadcast to the world by a liberal media eager to hype the latest pending catastrophe that, go figure, will only be abated when the broader society embraces the drastic measures prescribed by those who invented the fiction in the first place (immediate conversion to “green” everything / wholesale endorsement of the gay lifestyle.)

In addition to this, both the climate change and anti-bullying initiatives include a program of indoctrination designed to groom school children for future activism while, as an added bonus, equipping kids with the pseudo-science necessary to challenge any parent who dares cling to their backwards ways (“incandescent light bulbs are melting the polar icecaps” / “the gay lifestyle is absolutely normal.”)

By way of contrast, it seems that at least some of the captains of the anti-bullying industry, unlike their green counterparts, are no longer even bothering to pretend that their cause is anything other than the stealth nefarious liberalism that it is; in the present case, a marketing campaign designed to promote homosexual behavior among adolescents.

If nothing else, homosexual activist Dan Savage — who recently made news by bullying an assembly of high school students — deserves credit for being plainspoken about the fact that the anti-bullying campaign is actually a triumvirate of causes such that together with visceral hatred for Christianity and lockstep allegiance to the gay agenda they are but three men in one and the same tub — no pun intended.

Fr. Robert Barron recently addressed the topic of bullying in an article posted on the Word-on-Fire website saying, “Our culture has largely forgotten the subtle art of transforming boys into men.”

“Whether we are talking about the Navajo, Masai warriors, or Orthodox Jews, traditional cultures understand that boys have to be brought through a period of trial — some test of skill and endurance — during which they learn the virtues of courage and self-sacrifice,” Fr. Barron wrote.

“One reason why boys turn into bullies,” he theorized, “is that they have no one around to turn them into men.”

I agree wholeheartedly, but there are other sides to this coin that merit discussion as well.

Let’s begin by acknowledging that immature people of all ages have been picking on their weaker counterparts for as long as kids have been eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Is this a good thing? Of course not, but let’s stop pretending that something new is afoot. It’s not.

That’s not to say that nothing new is taking place, however.

To the extent that incidents of bullying are on the rise in general, and against “gay” kids in particular, (if, in fact, that’s really even the case at all) we can thank the same liberal social engineers who now claim to possess unparalleled insight into the solution.

It was, after all, the enlightened minds of the gender-nonconformity / anti-masculinity movement who sold feckless parents and educators on the unnatural ideas that created today’s victim class of weak-kneed boys who are ill-equipped at defending themselves and lack the wherewithal to come to the aid of a weaker counterpart; the way boys used to react to bullying.

With this being the case, would anyone in their right mind be surprised to discover that there has also been an increase in the number of adolescents (especially male) who are struggling to develop a healthy degree of sexual maturity, some of them even wondering if they’re homosexual?

As the Savages of the world would have us believe, a large percentage of human beings have always been “born gay,” but it is only thanks to the good efforts of people in the LGBT community that increasingly more of these kids are now able to come out of the closet.

Nonsense. The LGBT community has done nothing but yeoman’s work inmaking sure that sexually under-developed, confused adolescents who are wrestling with unnatural, disordered desires exist in spades. From there, these champions of justice do everything they can to make sure that these unfortunate children are summarily deprived of the help they really need, because God forbid anyone acknowledge the underlying psychological and spiritual maladies that accompany homosexuality.

The reality is that people like Dan Savage and his “husband” are simply using these poor kids to further their own self-satisfying agenda.

When a depressed and suffering adolescent who is grasping for sexual maturity comes forward, the best they can offer is a meaningless bumper sticker slogan, “It gets better,” accompanied, of course, by heartfelt encouragement to embrace every “gay” inclination that ever crosses their troubled young minds no matter how fleeting. Then, when things don’t just magically improve and one of the more broken of these poor souls commits suicide, the leftwing propagandists can’t exploit the tragedy fast enough, blaming everyone from conservative politicians to Jesus Christ Himself, but never themselves.

The anti-bullying hucksters are essentially asking us to believe that perfectly normal, psychologically healthy, adolescents who are experiencing entirely natural homosexual inclinations are being pushed to the brink of suicide entirely by outside forces; namely, bullies.

Seriously? Does anyone remember Columbine? The two perpetrators of the 1999 massacre at a Colorado high school were misfit victims of bullying who, in addition to killing and wounding dozens of others, ultimately took their own lives as well. Interestingly, the liberal left did in fact voice concerns about the role that bullying may have played in the tragedy, though it was largely drowned out by the hue and cry over gun control.

No one, however, was dopey enough to maintain that the two teen murderers turned suicide victims were otherwise psychologically healthy adolescents who were pushed to act by a bunch of meanies. When the FBI’s lead investigator and several psychiatrists ultimately concluded that the two teenaged gunmen were suffering with psychopathy and depression was anyone really surprised?

No, of course not, because it is pretty well understood that people who take their own lives are always suffering some substantial degree of psychological illness; it’s never just the work of a bully, an ex-wife, or a mean boss. Sure, outside influences may serve to act as a catalyst, but mentally healthy people are never just a few bullies away from taking their own lives. Only a willing fool believes otherwise.

In order for the bullying controversy to be all that the left claims it is, we also need to believe that those in charge of our schools are part of the problem and need to do more to prevent it. Right… because everyone knows that the overwhelming majority of the nation’s school teachers and principals are gun toting, right wing homophobes who are disinterested in the liberal agenda!

At the end of the day, innocent people — both hoodwinked parents and innocent children — are suffering while modern day gender-bending leftists congratulate themselves for being sufficiently enlightened of mind to recognize the next necessary step in the culture’s evolution. Truth be told, they give themselves far too much credit.

In reality, they are really little more than expendable pawns in the hands of a being far more cunning than they can even imagine; useful idiots deployed by an evil mastermind with reckless abandon into the thick of a life and death battle that began all the way back on day one.

Well, make that shortly after day seven; the topic of next week’s column.

On September 14, 2011, the Holy See presented the Society with a “Doctrinal Preamble” outlining “certain doctrinal principles and criteria for the interpretation of Catholic doctrine… [while also] leaving open to legitimate discussion the examination and theological explanation of individual expressions and formulations contained in the documents of Vatican Council II and later Magisterium.”

The Society has been asked to agree to the contents of the Preamble (the actual text of which is being held in strict confidence) in order to open the way for “achieving full reconciliation with the Apostolic See.” The SSPX sent an initial response to Rome in December 2011, but after being judged “insufficient” a more detailed reply was sent in January 2012.

On March 16th, the Vatican Press Office issued a communique stating, “The response of the Society of St. Pius X to the aforesaid Doctrinal Preamble [up to this point]… is not sufficient to overcome the doctrinal problems which lie at the foundation of the rift between the Holy See and the Society of St. Pius X. [Yet] moved by concern to avoid an ecclesial rupture of painful and incalculable consequences, the Superior General of the Society was invited to clarify his position in order to be able to heal the existing rift, as is the desire of Pope Benedict XVI.”

According to Fr. Federico Lombardi, S.J., spokesman for the Holy See, “Bishop Fellay’s response is expected to be here in about a month.”

There seems to be some disagreement as to whether or not the Holy See set April 15th as a firm deadline for the Society’s response, but recent signs may very well be pointing to an imminent family reunion of no less moment than the one described in the parable of the Prodigal Son. (This is not the place to develop this imperfect analogy in great detail, I only wish to point out that it would be incorrect to simply assume that the Society owns the principal role of he who squandered so much of the Father’s treasure. Indeed, if reconciliation does occur, rest assured, the SSPX will return bearing numerous valuable gifts that have been sorely missed in their absence.)

In any event, there are a number of reasons for optimism.

Fr. Franz Schmidberger, District Superior of the German District of the SSPX (who had stated just last February that the Preamble is “unacceptable”), for example, penned a statement to be read in the Society chapels under his care on Sunday, March 25th, which stated in part:

We have thus arrived at a crucial point. Even if the letter [of the Preamble] strikes an unpleasant sound, there are legitimate hopes for a satisfactory solution. If this solution would be reached it would considerably strengthen all the orthodox forces in the Church. If not, it would weaken and discourage these forces. So it is not primarily about our brotherhood, but for the good of the Church.

On March 29th, the General House of the SSPX issued a statement of its own relative to this situation, saying in part:

Bishop Bernard Fellay, Superior General of the Society of St. Pius X, has urgently been inviting the faithful to redouble their fervor in prayer… that the Divine Will may be done.

The Society of St. Pius X, which wants only the good of the Church and the salvation of souls, turns with confidence to the Blessed Virgin Mary, so that she might obtain from her divine Son the lights necessary to know His will clearly and to carry it out courageously.

It appears to me that the Society is preparing its faithful for reconciliation under terms that may be less than perfect, but that nonetheless represent a pathway to healing for the Church as a whole. Please note: While one may be tempted to believe that the Society alone is doing all of the clarifying, rewording and conceding in this process, one of the benefits of having kept the Preamble’s text secret is that it has afforded the Holy See an opportunity to contribute in like manner without any concern for the perceptions of others.

It is only speculation on my part, of course, but I sense that the SSPX has been given assurances that, in spite of remaining difficulties, the Holy Father sees the crisis in the Church in much the same way it does, and he will undertake steps (perhaps specific ones) to restore order more aggressively than in the past once the Society is regularized and can support him in this effort from within.

No, the pope doesn’t need anyone to have his back in order to so rule, but for whatever reason it is clear that the Holy Father has exercised much restraint over the years. Could it be that (please, God!) he is preparing to take the gloves off?

As the effects of old age are increasingly making themselves known to Pope Benedict, so too are the evil intentions of his enemies who grow bolder by the day. Maybe the pope has decided that now is the time to engage Satan’s minions full force with a bold program of restoration; one that will lead to the smaller more faithful Church he once envisioned. If so, bringing the Society home beforehand is more than just a matter of marshaling forces; it is also a way for the shepherd to provide additional refuge for the faithful amidst the turmoil that will no doubt ensue.

My suspicions were only strengthened when Pope Benedict chose the occasion of his Chrism Mass homily to chastise a group of dissenting clerics purportedly consisting of over 300 Austrian priests who, among other things, are calling for female ordination and an end to priestly celibacy.

“They are convinced that the slow pace of institutions has to be overcome by drastic measures, in order to open up new paths and to bring the Church up to date. But is disobedience really a way to do this,” the Holy Father asked rhetorically?

This leads to a few rhetorical questions of my own: Is it merely coincidence that the SSPX District Superior in Germany (Austria’s neighbor) was the first to publicly signal imminent reconciliation “for the good of the Church?” If the Holy Father were planning to enjoin the renegade Austrian clerics (and others like them throughout the world) with the firmness their actions beg, might not the prior regularization of the Society be especially valuable?

One should take note that the Holy Father did not say that “drastic measures” are not needed in order to overcome the present condition of the Church; rather, he pointed to zeal for the doctrine of the Faith as proposed by the teaching office of the Church as the real keys to renewal. In other words, one might reasonably believe that the Holy Father is telling us to prepare for the drastic measures that are in fact coming.

It may just be hopefulness on my part, but on Holy Thursday, Pope Benedict may have hinted at what the aforementioned program of restoration might include when he spoke so eloquently about the importance of kneeling.

“When menaced by the power of evil, as [Christians] kneel, they are upright before the world, while as sons and daughters, they kneel before the Father. Before God’s glory we Christians kneel and acknowledge his divinity; by that posture we also express our confidence that he will prevail,” he said invoking an imagery of battle.

Could it be that the Holy Father is signaling a universal mandate requiring the reception of Holy Communion kneeling and on the tongue, something the SSPX and many others in the Church would surely welcome?

The Holy Father went on to say, “In His anguished prayer on the Mount of Olives, Jesus resolved the false opposition between obedience and freedom, and opened the path to freedom.”

Is the pope suggesting a willingness to reexamine of the notion of religious liberty put forth by the Council; the same which so clearly divorces freedom from obedience to truth?

If this were not intriguing enough to the traditional mind, the pope’s Easter Vigil homily offered more images of warfare as he stressed the tremendous value of knowing the doctrine of the faith.

“Light makes life possible. It makes encounter possible. It makes communication possible. It makes knowledge, access to reality and to truth, possible. And insofar as it makes knowledge possible, it makes freedom and progress possible. Evil hides. Light, then, is also an expression of the good that both is and creates brightness,” the Holy Father continued. “It is daylight, which makes it possible for us to act. To say that God created light means that God created the world as a space for knowledge and truth, as a space for encounter and freedom, as a space for good and for love.”

In juxtaposing knowledge, goodness and light with ignorance, evil and darkness, is it possible that the Holy Father is hinting at the dawn of a new day in the Church wherein heresy will once again be slayed as heretics are condemned and called to account with real consequences for sowing their evil seeds?

There is much we still don’t know in this situation (not the least of which is the content of the Preamble), but of two things we can be absolutely certain:

One, if and when the SSPX is regularized and the ministry of their priests and bishops is made licit, it will be a great blessing for the entire Church, and secondly, Her enemies will make themselves known with unbridled ferocity.

Bishop Fellay’s advice is ever timely; we must turn with confidence to the Blessed Virgin Mary who shows us the Father’s will and obtains for us the grace to follow.

Even though the eyes of faith cannot help but see the light of new life glowing ever more brightly on the horizon, we must be careful not to look too far ahead lest we lose our bearings and fail to fully savor the liberating truth that the Via Crucis — the way of the Cross — is the solitary path that leads to the joy of the Resurrection.

“The strong temptations, the vanity and the malice of the world can only be overcome when we recognize that all human activity, which is constantly imperiled by man’s pride and deranged self-love, must be purified and perfected by the power of Christ’s cross and Resurrection” (cf GS 37).

Holy Week, and indeed all of Lent, is a perfect representation of what the Council Fathers are teaching, but even more than that, it is a microcosm of that earthly Christian life for which Easter Sunday on earth is a blessed foretaste of Heaven.

We are reminded in a concrete way during Holy Week that those who wish to enter into the Gloria of the Risen Christ for all eternity can do so only by walking in the very footsteps, traced on Good Friday, of He who alone is the Way, the Truth and the Life.

Sure, we can presume to simply check off the days of this holiest of weeks (and the days of our lives) as though our salvation is a fait accompli, but unless we carry the Cross that serves as the key to Heaven’s door, this Sunday — as every one to follow — will forever remain little more than just the first day of yet another week in which fallen man will labor in vain, by the sweat of his brow, only to die in this valley of tears.

“You shall be holy; for I the Lord your God am holy” (Leviticus 19:2).

Holiness. This was the underlying purpose of the Mosaic Law and its 613 commandments, but these were not an end unto themselves; rather, the People Israel were called to holiness in preparation for the Christ; He who would one day up the ante by proclaiming, “You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt. 5:48).

Clearly, our Savior did not come simply to reiterate that Old Law which in letter was impossible to uphold; He came to fulfill it, and to do so in such way as to give to fallen man even more than he had lost in Eden. As such, Jesus shows us not merely a way to holiness; He shows us the very perfection of the Father!

“He who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9).

Jesus is the Way to that true holiness that belongs only to God, to that Heavenly perfection attainable only through, with and in Him. The personal mandate to perfection after the example of the Holy One of God is reflected in the “universal call to holiness” issued by the Council Fathers at Vatican II.

“The classes and duties of life are many, but holiness is one — that sanctity which is cultivated by all who are moved by the Spirit of God, and who obey the voice of the Father and worship God the Father in spirit and in truth. These people follow the poor Christ, the humble and cross-bearing Christ in order to be worthy of being sharers in His glory. Every person must walk unhesitatingly according to his own personal gifts and duties in the path of living faith, which arouses hope and works through charity” (LG 41).

How can anyone answer this call to holiness in such way as to be truly worthy of sharing in the Lord’s glory? On our own, we cannot, but this, as all things, is made possible only by the Divine Mercy of Him whose “yoke is easy and whose burden is light” (cf Mt. 11:30); Christ the King, “our Redeemer and High Priest who continues the work of our redemption in the sacred liturgy — in, with, and through the Catholic Church” (cf CCC 1069).

As Lent draws to a close, it is beneficial to consider the image of Simon of Cyrene — the passerby who was snatched from obscurity to a place of prominence on the Via Crucis, for he strikes a poignant figure of every single Christian who aspires to share in the glory of the Risen Lord.

Yes, we are called to “take up our cross and to follow” Christ (cf Mt. 16:24), yet we must realize that there is but one Cross that can truly redeem us, and likewise only one path that leads to Heaven; the way of which Jesus said, “Where I am going, you cannot come” (John 8:21).

What then are we to do?

Even though we tend to think of Simon of Cyrene simply as he who assisted our Blessed Lord in carrying the Cross, this is to miss the point entirely. In truth, Jesus had no need of any man’s assistance on the Via Crucis — the Cyrenian was called forth, not for the Lord’s sake but for ours; that we might see what it means to emerge from the outlands to walk with Christ toward the Eternal Jerusalem.

Our journey of faith is not so much a matter of taking up our own cross (as though we could ever bear up under its weight for even one step) as it is laying claim to that portion of the Cross of Christ that rightly belongs to us. In calling sinners to take up their cross, Jesus is issuing an invitation to emerge from the exile that truly deserve, to embrace that decree of death that is rightly our own; that which found its place on the Cross that Jesus alone (not you, not me, not Simon of Cyrene) could willingly carried.

“Blotting out the handwriting of the decree that was against us, which was contrary to us, Jesus hath taken the same out of the way, fastening it to the cross” (Colossians 2:14) so that we might repeat after St. Paul, “With Christ I am nailed to the cross. And I live, now not I: but Christ liveth in me. And that I live now in the flesh: I live in the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and delivered Himself for me” (Galatians 2:19-20).

Surely we are not the authors of our own salvation; rather, we are by the grace of God called to be co-operators in His saving action — that which is made mystically present in a most profound way in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass — a truth worth sharing with those family members and friends who tend to treat the sacred liturgy as a biannual, largely cultural, event.

All that is asked of us — not just during Lent, but every day of the year — is to join the sacrifice of our lives to the one Cross of Christ, in His Church; that by His perfect offering of love poured forth in the shedding of His Most Precious Blood, we may be made holy to the glory of His name.

“He Himself stands as the Author and Consummator of this holiness of life…” (LG 40)

Lift high the Cross!

When the mandate was first proposed, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), citing our Constitutional right to “religious liberty” in light of the fact that Catholic moral teaching forbids such practices, requested a “conscience clause” that would provide an exemption for Catholic institutions.

Apart from allowing an exemption for institutions that fit a very narrow definition, the Obama Administration refused the Conference’s request and the majority of the American bishops have since spoken out, many of them issuing letters in their own name expressing everything from disappointment to outrage; some even going so far as to vow civil disobedience.

Bishop Olmstead of Phoenix, for example, said, “The Administration has cast aside the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, denying to Catholics our first and most fundamental freedom, that of religious liberty.” He said that the rule as it now stands will force us [Catholic institutions] to either “violate our consciences, or drop health coverage for our employees.”

“We cannot — we will not — comply with this unjust law,” Bishop Olmstead pledged.

These sentiments, or ones very similar, were echoed by many in the American episcopate at large, some bishops even had (or plan to have) their letters read aloud at Mass to encourage the faithful to join them in combatting what all seem to agree is an egregious assault on religious liberty.

A number of “conservative” Catholic commentators with whom I have spoken praised the bishops for “answering the wake-up call” and for “taking the gloves off” at long last to lock horns with the Obama Administration in so direct and so public a fashion.

For my part, even though I’m all-in with the call to fight the good fight, I see far more to lament than to applaud in this situation, beginning with the fundamental question of Catholic identity that it naturally begs.

If current events indicate anything at all it’s that we really need to take a step back and ask ourselves who we are. Are we Catholics first and Americans second, or vice versa?

Anyone paying attention to the bishop’s rhetoric over the last several weeks would have little choice but to conclude that they consider us to be Americans first and only Catholic secondarily. While this may indeed be the case by neither design nor intent, it’s difficult to deny that this is precisely the message our shepherds have been sending to all concerned.

Needless to say, this crisis of identity didn’t just appear on the scene out of nowhere like a community organizer fresh from a Saul Alinski seminar; rather, it has been brewing over the course of many decades, most notably those following the Second Vatican Council. Recent events, however, do bring the problem and its ill effects into sharper focus.

Just a brief look at the way in which the bishops framed their argument against the HHS mandate from day one makes it is clear that the crisis of which I speak is a major factor in bringing our shepherds to this point where they now finding themselves embroiled in a messy political battle rather than devoting the fullness of their energies more directly toward winning the battle for souls; i.e., teaching, sanctifying and governing the people of God.

For example:

• Instead of claiming recourse to the Gospel of Jesus Christ as one might reasonably expect of the Successors to the Apostles, many of our bishops have approached the matter almost exclusively from a civil liberties angle; busily citing the First Amendment of the Constitution.
• Rather than decrying the objective immorality of such acts as contraception and abortion (regardless of who practices them) and rejecting them as offenses against God and His Divine Law, most bishops are expressing outrage, not on the Lord’s behalf, but on man’s behalf as a violation of personal conscience.
• Rather than chastising our leaders for exceeding the limits of their power by commanding that which is contrary to the laws of nature and the will of God, they are criticizing the government for infringing upon “America’s first freedom.”

I could go on, but presumably you get the point. So now where do we find ourselves? I guess you could say “in a pickle” to put it politely.

For example:

• The bishops are now calling upon the faithful to join them in fighting this assault on our collective Catholic conscience. This sounds great until one considers the fact that the majority of Catholics today see no problem with contraception after decades of having been misled to believe that it’s OK to simply “follow one’s conscience” by wayward bishops, priests and theologians, many of whom spoke and wrote on the matter publicly yet suffered no consequence other than to become overnight liberal icons.
• The bishops are calling on the laity to join them in demanding that the government grant Catholic institutions a broad-based exemption in deference to our civil right to religious freedom. This sounds fine at first blush too until one considers that any claims that are founded on Constitutional law are going to elicit a response that is based upon a political calculation. President Obama and company are no dummies. They know darn well that most Catholics (regardless of employer), as well as those people working in Catholic institutions (Catholic and otherwise), who use contraception or who want to undergo a sterilization procedure (i.e., the majority), will be tickled to death to see this mandate go into effect. These are, after all, hard economic times.

So now what? As I said, this crisis has been decades in the making. No one, therefore, should expect the correction to be either quick or easy, or even painless for that matter.

Getting to the core of the matter of identity, the inimitable Fr. Z is wont to say as often as anyone is willing to listen, “There can be no renewal of any aspect of our Catholic lives and identity without first a revitalization of our liturgical worship.” Needless to say, we have a very long way to go in this regard.

That said, one thing that every faithful Catholic can do right away — from the simplest of laymen to the most eminent of Cardinals — is to make it a point to think, and to act, and to speak on all matters in Catholic terms, as though we are proud to let it be known that we are Catholic first and Americans second.

I know… it sounds way too simple to be of any real value given the gravity of the battle at hand, but doing so, however subtly, underscores the fundamental truth that the Evil One is Hell bent on tempting human beings in our age to deny and with no small amount of success; namely, objective truth exists, His name is Jesus Christ, and He alone is King.

Apparently, either Mr. Carney’s memory is failing or his trousers are ablaze.

In any case, it seems that a bit of history is in order to set the record straight as to how we arrived at this lamentable point in time where the Obama Administration is wielding unprecedented control over the nation’s healthcare system. For as Edmund Burke said, “Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.”

One upon a time, in 1993, when the Clinton Administration was plotting to nationalize healthcare in the U.S. (which in spite of any need of improvement was still arguably the finest in the world), the USCCB made it known that it stood in agreement with those political progressives who insisted that the entire system was “inequitable,” “unjust” and in need of not just tweaking; but “fundamental reform.”

Sixteen years later, little had changed.

During the early days of the healthcare reform debate in 2009, the USCCB almost certainly put Obama and his cohorts at ease by reminding them, lest they could have possibly forgotten, that their statist ambitions dovetailed rather nicely with the Conference’s own long-held aspirations save for scaling one solitary hurdle: the life issue.

“Our goal has been really for decades to have universal health care reform. We’re very much in favor of that; we were in favor of that many decades before it was fashionable,” said USCCB Associate Pro-Life Director, Richard Doerflinger, effectively boasting the bishops’ leftwing credentials while doing very little to put the Administration on notice concerning the Church’s moral authority.

Doerflinger does deserve credit for at least attempting, albeit ineffectively, to tie the Conference’s position to Catholic doctrine by claiming recourse toPacem in Terris, the social encyclical of Pope John XIII, for the notion that “basic health coverage” is a “matter of justice.”

Just one problem though; Pacem in Terris doesn’t mention the insipid term “basic health coverage” (much less “health insurance”) even once; rather it insists upon every human being’s “right to be looked after in the event of ill health.”

Clearly, there’s a substantial difference between an ill-defined, open-ended entitlement to “coverage” and a right to receive needed medical care in the event of a bona fide malady. In fact, based on the bitter experience of current events, most people now realize that it’s rather like the difference between guaranteeing access to heart bypass surgery and handing out free contraceptives like candy corn on Halloween.

To be very clear, Richard Doerflinger was just one of many spokespersons who did the Conference’s bidding. He personally doesn’t shoulder substantial blame for the fact that Catholics in the United States are now faced with the unjust mandates of Obama’s immoral dictatorship; rather, it is his exalted employer that bears the brunt of that responsibility.

In fairness, this history lesson wouldn’t be complete without acknowledging that in addition to granting its de facto blessing to the Administration’s hostile takeover of the nation’s healthcare system (with nary a peep about the principle of subsidiarity), the Conference did call on legislators to include measures that would, in principle even if not in reality, protect human life.

For instance, the USCCB sent a letter to the U.S. Senate saying, “Health care reform legislation should reflect longstanding and widely supported current policies on abortion funding, mandates and conscience protections,” referring in part to the Hyde Amendment which ostensibly prohibits tax dollars from being used for abortion.

Clarifying the USCCB’s position, Sr. Maryanne Walsh wrote in a Washington Post editorial during the heat of the debate, “What the bishops have said is that for healthcare reform [read: the Obama takeover] they would live with the status quo where the government does not pay for abortions or abortion-containing health plans [via the Hyde Amendment], but people who want abortion coverage can purchase it with other funds.”

Is this Kingdom still to come such that we might participate in bringing it to fulfillment, or is the reign of Christ the King a present reality that we are duty bound to proclaim? The answer is yes!

Sadly, however, we all-too-often fail to do our part.

The book of Wisdom speaks rather poignantly to the present day situation wherein our political leaders in Washington presume to exercise their authority, not just beyond that which is granted them in the U.S. Constitution, but over and against the Kingship of Christ.

“For thy judgments, O Lord, are great, and thy words cannot be expressed: therefore undisciplined souls have erred. For while the wicked thought to be able to have dominion over the holy nation, they themselves being fettered with the bonds of darkness, and a long night, shut up in their houses, lay there exiled from the eternal providence (Wisdom 17:1-2).

We, unlike Solomon, are not living in that age during which the Divine words could not be expressed; rather, to us has the fullness of God’s Revelation been given in Christ Jesus and entrusted to the Church as custodian and teacher.

The Church and Her members have thus been commissioned by the Lord, not just to revel in His truth privately as if content to dwell in a Catholic ghetto, butto profess to all the world that Jesus is Lord, leading the undisciplined souls into that Kingdom into which all the nations are destined to be gathered.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church speaks to our solemn obligation as follows:

The duty of offering God genuine worship concerns man both individually and socially. This is “the traditional Catholic teaching on the moral duty of individuals and societies toward the true religion and the one Church of Christ.” By constantly evangelizing men, the Church works toward enabling them “to infuse the Christian spirit into the mentality and mores, laws and structures of the communities in which [they] live.” The social duty of Christians is to respect and awaken in each man the love of the true and the good. It requires them to make known the worship of the one true religion which subsists in the Catholic and apostolic Church. Christians are called to be the light of the world. Thus, the Church shows forth the kingship of Christ over all creation and in particular over human societies (CCC 2105).

By this standard, we must admit that the overwhelming majority of us — clergy and laity alike — have fallen terribly short in recent decades; some by weakness, others by ignorance.

In truth, far too few in the Church today seem willing to risk the ostracization that most certainly will come for making it known that the Catholic faith is the one true religion that all men have a moral duty to embrace. Likewise, even our most prominent voices stop short of proclaiming that Jesus Christ is Sovereign over all creation, behaving instead as though the Lord’s Kingship is just a “Catholic thing.”

This is especially evident in the way so many of our leaders tend to fence political with those who exercise civil authority rather than upbraiding them as Jesus did Satan saying, “The Lord thy God shalt thou adore, and Him only shalt thou serve” (as we heard in the Gospel reading for the First Sunday of Lent in the Traditional Mass).

Oh yes, I’ve heard the argument before, “If we want to have any impact at all we must speak to our politicians about policy initiatives, civil law and the like; not esoteric religious principles they will never accept!”

Entirely logical though this strategy may seem, the fatal flaw lies in the simple fact that it’s not what the Lord commissioned us to do. Sure, we should make political arguments when warranted, but let’s not forget that we are called first and foremost to proclaim the word of Christ.

Given our reluctance to do so of late, one may ask concerning our wayward politicians the very same questions posed by St. Paul in the Epistle to the Romans:

“How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? Or how shall they believe Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? Faith then cometh by hearing; and hearing by the word of Christ (Romans 10:14,17).

Some of those believers who first received this exhortation responded by embracing a martyr’s death, and though the call itself hasn’t changed, we certainly have. Ours is a generation of the timid; a people who take refuge in the “can’t we all just get along” attitude formally enshrined in the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on Religious Liberty.

I have addressed this topic in this space a number of times in the past, mainly by referencing the traditional teachings of the Roman Pontiffs (Leo XIII, Pius XI and others), but with so many modern day Catholics wrongly assuming that the Council has effectively trumped all of the Magisterium that preceded it, perhaps a different approach is in order.

I would propose, therefore, to do a little ressourcement of my own (a French term invoked in the conciliar debates meaning a “return to sources”) by looking to Sacred Scripture as the basis for our understanding of the temporal dimension of Christ’s Kingship.

First, consider carefully the words that Our Lord spoke to Pilate: “My kingship is not of this world; if my kingship were of this world, my servants would fight, that I might not be handed over; but my kingship is not from the world” (John 18:36).

Notice that Jesus does not say that His servants will not fight in this world; indeed they must, but not as the worldly do. Rather, the servants of Christ the King will wage war by wielding weaponry that comes from a share in the Divine power.

“For though we live in the world we are not carrying on a worldly war, for the weapons of our warfare are not worldly but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every proud obstacle to the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete” (2 Cor. 10:3-6).

When St. Paul says that our war is not worldly, he does not mean to imply that we have no battlefields here in the present order. Our Lord came to redeemall of creation; therefore, we can fully expect that among the strongholds that will be brought to heel by Christ are those in this world, often through the co-operative actions of His faithful servants.

Nowhere does Jesus suggest that His Kingship has no dominion over this world; rather, He lets it be known that His kingdom is greater than this world. He even tells Pilate that the only reason he has any power whatsoever is that it has been given to him from above, a very clear indication of the duty incumbent upon all earthly rulers to uphold Divine truth.

And where does this power now rest in its fullness today?

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me,” said the Risen Lord. “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you…”(Mt. 28:18-20)

Jesus does not speak of having authority in heaven alone, but also “on earth,” nor does He commission the Church to make disciples simply of “individual people” but rather of “all nations.”

Yes, it is indeed individual people who are baptized into Christ, but the mission of the Church is to build the Kingdom of God in the here-and-now; into that Holy Nation once foreshadowed in the people Israel. This Kingdom is indeed a spiritual reality, but it is one that is made manifest in the temporal order as the work of redemption is brought to completion by Christ working through His Body, the Church.

Returning to the Wisdom of Solomon, we who by grace possess the Light of the World in Christ and yet fail to fully shine it in this culture of darkness bear some responsibility for those rulers of State who err by presuming to have dominion over the Lord and His Church.

There has ever been but one faithful response, and that is preaching with neither timidity nor apology the social Kingship of Christ and the singular glory of the Church that He founded — the Catholic Church — the one true religion and universal sacrament of salvation.

And why shouldn’t we? This is, after all, the Good News.

After initially intending to complete this series in three parts, it appears that it may be useful to tie up any remaining loose ends with an overview of the propositions put forth in the Declaration on Religious Liberty of Vatican II, followed by Fr. Murray’s own reflections dated the year after its promulgation. (Note: A bibliography follows.)

First, a recap of the salient issues beginning with a brief outline of the Church’s traditional teaching, which states the following:

• Man enjoys religious liberty on the individual level, not properly considered a “right to err” (as all rights come from the God who is truth); but rather as freedom from coercion.
• Though he may not be coerced, man has the duty to seek the “true religion” and to adhere to it once found; it is “namely, the Catholic faith, the one established by Jesus Christ Himself, and which He committed to His Church to protect and to propagate” (cf Immortale Dei – 7).
• Freedom from coercion is not a license to practice and propagate religious falsehood in the public arena (which can do harm to society); rather, such things can either be tolerated or suppressed by the legitimate public authority as necessary in service to the common good.
• The Catholic Church, by the merits of Her Founder, “is a society eminently independent, and above all others, because of the excellence of the heavenly and immortal blessings towards which it tends” (Pope Leo XIII – Officio Sanctissimo).
• Christ is King, therefore, “everything, without exception, must be subject to Him, and must serve Him, so that whosoever holds the right to govern holds it from one sole and single source, namely, God, the sovereign Ruler of all. ‘There is no power but from God’” (Immortale Dei – 3).

Vatican II largely adopted Murray’s ideas on church-state relations in the Declaration on Religious Liberty, Dignitatis Humanae, departing from the traditional teaching via the following propositions:

• No one is to be restrained from acting in accordance with his own beliefs (even those that are false and opposed to Christ), neither privately nor publicly, within due limits as the “public order” may demand (cf DH 2).
• This freedom to publicly disseminate and practice even the false religions is founded on the dignity of the human person, in his very nature; i.e., the suggestion being that this so-called “right” to lead others away from God comes from God Himself (ibid.).
• The Church, therefore, calls upon States to recognize this broad-based religious liberty as a “civil right” (ibid). In short, the freedom once insisted upon by the Church as uniquely Her own is now demanded of States as “the Constitutional right of all men and communities,” even those that oppose the reign of Christ the King (cf DH 13).
• The State transgresses the limits of its power if it attempts to inhibit “religious” acts (DH 3).

In the year after the Second Vatican Council closed (1966) Fr. Murray wrote, “Dignitatis Humanae is a document of very modest scope. [It attempted] to show that a harmony exists between religious freedom in the juridico-social sense, and Christian freedom in the various senses of this latter concept as they emerge from Scripture and from the doctrine of the Church. The Declaration merely suggests that the two kinds of freedom are related; it does not undertake to specify more closely what their precise relationship is.”

To his credit, Murray doesn’t attempt to exaggerate the Declaration’s heft; rather he tells us that it only goes so far as to “suggest” that a harmonious relationship exists between the Council’s novel treatment of religious freedom on the one hand, and the well-established papal magisterium of the previous centuries on the other. More noteworthy still is his candid admission that the Council didn’t even venture to substantiate this “suggestion” by addressing “what their precise relationship is.”

“The Declaration,” Murray continues, “does not undertake to present a full and complete theology of freedom.”

Based on these reflections alone it would appear that Murray – the chief architect of Dignitatis Humanae – imputes far less doctrinal weight to the document than many of his contemporaries seem eager to do.

Furthermore, Murray’s statements are a stunning indication that the document’s authors – living and working in those heady conciliar days during which all things seemed possible and all things “new” were just assumed to be “improved” – proceeded undaunted in spite of an awareness that the theological principals upon which their assertions are presumably founded were not as yet fully developed.

So why did the Council neglect the due diligence of first constructing a solid theological foundation?

“This would have been a far more ambitious task,” Murray tells us, even going so far as to admit that establishing harmony between the Council’s conclusions and the traditional teaching “would have been a far more satisfactory method of procedure, from the theological point of view.”

According to Murray, the Council deliberately chose not to do so for the five reasons quoted below, followed by a reflection on each by the present writer.

“1. The Declaration is the only conciliar document that is formally addressed to the world at large on a topic of intense secular as well as religious interest. Therefore, it would have been inept for the Declaration to begin with doctrines that can be known only by revelation and accepted only by faith.”

This is yet another stunning admission! It suggests that the Council went about drafting Dignitatis Humanae under the self-imposed restriction that it dare not present an argument of such great “secular” concern within the framework of the Catholic faith and Divine Revelation.

Is it not, however, the Church’s very mission to do precisely this on all matters? Furthermore, is it not the voice of Christ that should resonate in the decrees of every ecumenical council in such way as to call out to those wandering in the desert of falsehood, that they may come to be nourished by truth at the bosom of the Church? As such, is not every conciliar decree in some sense addressed to the world at large, even if not explicitly so?

“2. What the world at large, as well as the faithful within the Church, wants to know today is the stand of the Church on religious freedom as a human and civil right. It would be idle to deny that the doctrine of the Church, as formulated in the 19th century, is somewhat ambiguous in itself, out of touch with contemporary reality and a cause of confusion among the faithful and of suspicion throughout large sectors of public opinion.”

Setting aside the richness (and none-too-subtle arrogance) of the accusation that the traditional teaching is “ambiguous” and causes “confusion,” one cannot help but wonder to what extent, if any, Murray and company attempted to reconcile the traditional doctrine with “contemporary reality” before simply setting about replacing it with something new. His reflections on the process of debate leading up to the Declaration (which will be quoted shortly) indicate that it was perhaps very little.

“3. The theological structure of the argument, as proposed above, would give rise to historical and theological problems which are still matters of dispute among theologians. There is, for instance, the problem of the exact relationship between Christian freedom and religious freedom. There is, furthermore, the whole problem of the development of doctrine, from Mirari Vos to Dignitatis Humanae personae.”

Once again, Murray plainly admits that the theology that presumably anchored Dignitatis Humanae to the sacred deposit of faith was “a matter of dispute” as the Council met (and so it remains today).

Based upon this, it would seem that the propositions put forth in the Declaration amount to little more than what we might call “credit card theology” as its authors chose to immediately lay hold of the doctrinal innovations they desired, but with no firm intention of paying the theological debt until later.

Evidently, they just assumed that someone would eventually come along with the capital necessary to settle the debt, but here we are more than 45 years hence and still it remains unpaid. And at what cost!

“4. Christian freedom, as the gift of the Holy Spirit, is not exclusively the property of the members of the visible Church, any more than the action of the Spirit is confined within the boundaries of the visible Church. This topic is of great ecumenical importance, but the discussion of it would have to be nice in every respect, and therefore impossible in a brief document.”

Note well the degree to which a fear of offending non-Catholics held sway in the process of debating Dignitatis Humanae. This sense of apprehension (apparently driven by a distorted notion of ecumenism) seems to be what led Murray and his supporters to shy away from explicitly acknowledging the exclusive rights of Christ the King and the hard truth (or “good news” depending on one’s outlook) that the fullness of the Spirit’s gifts are present in the Catholic Church alone.

“5. Christian freedom is indeed asserted over against all earthly powers… It is, however, also asserted within the Church… and it is also the basis of prudent protest when the exercise of [ecclesial] authority goes beyond legitimate bounds… Hence the Declaration is at pains to distinguish sharply the issue of religious freedom in the juridico- social order from the larger issue of Christian freedom. The disastrous thing would be to confuse the two distinct issues. Obviously, the issue of Christian freedom [within the Church itself]—its basis, its meaning, its exercise and its limits—will have to be clarified by free discussion, conducted carefully and patiently in a sustained dialogue between pastors and people over many years. However, this dialogue will be the more successful now that the Declaration has settled the lesser issue of the free exercise of religion in civil society.”

Several things stand out here. First, one notices a contradiction as Murray plainly admits in one breath that the theology that presumably forms the foundation for Dignitatis Humanae remains undeveloped, yet in the other breath he declares the matter of religious liberty as articulated therein “settled.”

Secondly, Murray states (as if giving a nod to Tradition), “Christian freedom is indeed asserted over against all earthly powers,” but it’s important to recognize that this statement is only true provided that by “Christian” he is referring specifically to the Catholic Church and not to every heretical community that calls itself “Christian.”

Lastly, Murray insinuates that it was necessary for the Council to address the matter of religious liberty in society at large while walking on eggshells, as it were, in order to avoid the risk of inviting discord within the more perfect society that is the Church. This should have served as a red flag to the authors.

Is it not true that every authentic service to society (and likewise to human dignity) is by its very nature that which moves all concerned toward a greater degree of unity with the Lord? As such, how could such a service possibly pose a threat to the peace of the Church ad intra?

In any event, Murray gives us a very interesting glimpse into the debate that preceded Declaration’s final form saying, “The [traditional] concept of the common good, and—what is much the same—the concept of the purpose of society, had been advanced in the first two conciliar schemata.” (The “schemata” to which Murray refers are the preliminary outlines that dictated the overall scope and direction of the conciliar debate; ultimately forming the content of the document itself.)

“Neither of them was acceptable,” Murray reflected, “given the notion of society and government adopted in the Declaration from the doctrine of Pius XII. In this doctrine the common good itself and the purpose of society require the fullest possible free exercise of all human and civil rights, and government has the primary duty, not of limiting, but rather of promoting the freedom of the human person as far as possible.”

God bless Fr. Murray for his candor! Remarkably, he is telling us that the conciliar process was essentially inverted as the schemata were altered, twice no less, to downplay the Tradition in order to “grease the skids” for the outcome desired!

In referencing Pope Pius XII, Murray is referring to DH 13 which footnotes an address that the Holy Father gave to Italian jurists (entitled, Ci Riesce) wherein he said of the traditional doctrine, “There never has been, and there is not now, in the Church any vacillation or any compromise, either in theory or in practice… No other norms are valid for the Church except the norms which We have just indicated for the Catholic jurist and statesman.”

It truly is nothing short of breathtaking to discover how soundly the very document to which the authors of Dignitatis Humanae claim recourse refutes their propositions! A full reading of Ci Riesce, which I encourage you to undertake, makes it crystal clear that Pope Pius XII was determined to remove all doubt as to his intention to reaffirm the enduring nature of his predecessors’ teachings; the same that rendered the first two schemata “unacceptable” in the eyes of Murray and his conciliar supporters.

In conclusion, perhaps the most useful reflection Murray left us is this:

“It is not necessary to believe that the conciliar argument is the best one that can be made. It did not pretend, in fact, to be apodictic [i.e., a matter of absolute truth necessary to hold]. The Conciliar intention was simply to indicate certain lines that an argument might validly follow. Moreover, the doctrinal authority of the Declaration falls upon its affirmation of the human right to religious freedom, not on the arguments advanced in support of this affirmation.”

Note well that Murray contends that the “doctrinal authority” of Dignitatis Humanae rests not upon the deposit of faith that Pope John XIII had enjoined the Council Fathers to protect as their “greatest concern,” but rather upon the document’s own “affirmation of the human right to religious freedom.”

In other words, the validity of the Declaration’s novelties rests squarely upon the document itself! This is not just poor theology; it’s simple tautology.

Many arguments indeed “might validly follow” including, of course, an argument for the enduring validity of the traditional teaching – yes, even today. On that note, if we accept Murray’s premise that the merits of the Church’s approach to religious liberty must ever be reevaluated in the light of present day circumstances, I think few among us would argue that society, and likewise the Church, has been well served by the conciliar approach.

Bishop William E. Lori, Chairman of the newly established U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Liberty, perhaps summed up the current state of affairs best when he recently said, “When we speak about religious freedom as the first of the freedoms, it’s not to aggrandize the Church, but to uphold the first line of defense for the dignity of the human person.”

One may rightly wonder if it is truly possible (for any of the baptized, but especially for a Successor to the Apostles) to defend the dignity of the human person without “aggrandizing” the universal sacrament of salvation that the Lord has given to us; namely, the Catholic Church. Is this not the Great Commission we are charged with carrying out in every age?

Let’s be honest – we, clergy and laity alike, have largely shrunken away from the duty of calling the world’s attention to the unique grandeur of the Catholic Church for more than four decades now, and this is precisely the glaring shortcoming with religious liberty as it has been invoked post Vatican II; it only seeks to assure that in matters of governance the doctrines and rights of Christ the King and of His Holy Catholic Church are granted the same consideration as the idols and errors of the heathens and the heretics.

And yet, when godless rulers find it all too easy to dismiss our calls for “conscience clauses” as though the voice of the Church is just one more opinion among many (as happened this week in the United States) can we really be surprised?

After all, isn’t that pretty much all we’ve mustered up the gumption to say for ourselves lo these past forty years?

Bibliography

Pope Leo XIII – Immortale Dei – On the Christian Constitution of States

Pope Leo XIII – Officio Sanctissimo – On the Church in Bavaria

Pope Pius XII – Ci Riesce – Address to Convention of Italian Catholic Jurists

Dignitatis Humanae – Declaration on Religious Freedom – Second Vatican Council

John Courtney Murray’s reflections written in 1966 (available here and here)

(Note: A more comprehensive bibliography can be found at the conclusion to Part 3.)

“My answer to that: We always need a Jesus candidate,” Santorum responded. “We need someone who believes in something more than themselves and not just the economy. When we say, ‘God bless America,’ do we mean it or do we just say it?”

Wasting precious little time, Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, took the bait and issued a press release on January 6 answering Santorum’s rhetorical question with what amounted to a resounding “Hell no, we don’t mean it!”

Little surprise here as anyone even remotely familiar with Foxman’s professional victimhood organization / personal ATM (which according to the Better Business Bureau provided him with nearly $400,000 in salary and benefits in 2009) knows darn well that the ADL doesn’t “believe in something more than itself and the economy,” to borrow Santorum’s phrase.

Well, unless of course that “something” is the faith of godless liberalism and its most cherished of all sacraments, abortion.

According to the ADL release, Foxman said:

“Senator Santorum’s remark comparing himself to a ‘Jesus candidate’ was inappropriate and exclusionary. It essentially says that those of other faiths or of no faith – whether Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, non-believers or others – do not belong.”

Foxman is right about one thing; Santorum’s remarks may strike some folks as exclusionary.

Truth be told, Santorum’s entire candidacy is founded upon principals and positions that are informed by his Catholic faith. Therefore, those who champion the notion that marriage is a merely human construct that can be legislatively redefined to include same-gender unions may in fact feel excluded, as may those who believe that partial birth abortion is just another medical procedure.

In reality, these individuals are more than welcome to attempt a defense of their liberal arguments in an honest exchange of ideas, but let’s be clear – even though Foxman claims to be a defender of Jews – it’s no more possible to reconcile the ADL’s political positions with authentic Jewish thought than it is to do so while invoking Jesus Christ.

You see, the irony is that among those who feel most at home with Rick Santorum’s views, not the least of which concern social issues, are American Jews. No, not simply those whose great-great Bubby was a practicing Jew back in the Old Country while they personally prefer to worship at the altar of the Democrat Party here in the U.S. (albeit while occasionally marching under the Mogen David). I mean those Jewish Americans who proudly embrace the traditional moral values that are common to both Judaism and Catholicism.

The ADL release further quoted Foxman as pontificating, “Religious appeals to voters are simply unacceptable and un-American.”

Really? If Foxman would only take a closer look at the pile of U.S. dollars he has amassed over the years via his ADL antics he’d discover that each one of them says, “In God we trust.” So much for religion being un-American.

The ADL ’s insistence that Santorum’s faith must never rear its (presumably ugly) head in the American political process is as much the height of hypocrisy as their phony concern for inclusion. (Would Jewish conservatives like Marc Levin or Jonah Goldberg feel particularly welcome sharing their views at an ADL fundraiser? I doubt it.)

In addition to being as non-partisan as Emily’ List in practice, Abe Foxman’s ADL is about as keen on keeping faith out of the political arena as Jeremiah Wright’s Trinity United Church of Christ was – it’s just that the ADL’s creed is not typically considered a “religious” one; rather, it’s the secular humanist liberal political agenda, the primary articles of faith of which are that mankind is supremely autonomous (at the whim of the cognoscenti) and morality-by-consensus is desirable (provided, of course, the consensus opinion lines up neatly with their own).

Full disclosure – my wife and many of my family members are Jewish. (For inquiring minds, yes, we are validly married in the Catholic Church – thank you very much!) I do appreciate the fact that the ADL has been known to dabble in a worthy effort to combat authentic anti-Semitism every now and again (never mind its shameless track record of shaking the donation tree for fruit by pointing an anti-Semitic finger at the drop of a yarmulke).

The more noble part of the operation, however, appears to be just a means to an end wherein allegations of “anti-Semitism,” both real and imagined, are employed as an emotional trigger intended to produce the publicity and the capital necessary to keep the ADL hypocrisy machine and its Left Wing political agenda running smoothly.

In an official statement released on January 4, Archbishop José Gomez reported, “Bishop Gabino Zavala, auxiliary bishop for the San Gabriel Pastoral Region, informed me in early December that he is the father of two minor teenage children, who live with their mother in another state.

“Bishop Zavala also told me that he submitted his resignation to the Holy Father in Rome, which was accepted. Since that time,” the statement continues, “he has not been in ministry and will be living privately.”

Archbishop Gomez described the news as “sad and difficult,” and it most certainly is.

Any time a clergyman violates his vows (even if the details are never made public) the entire Body of Christ is wounded in a particularly profound way. When indiscretions such as these do become public knowledge, however, the faithful are necessarily scandalized and the reputation of the Church is sullied.

The way in which the aftermath of the Zavala affair is handled moving forward, therefore, is very important, because like it or not, with the eyes of the world now watching it’s going to be a “teaching moment.”

So, how did the Archdiocese of Los Angeles decide to seize the opportunity?

According to Archbishop Gomez’s statement, “The Archdiocese has reached out to the mother and children to provide spiritual care as well as funding to assist the children with college costs. The family’s identity is not known to the public, and I wish to respect their right to privacy.”

“Funding to assist the children with college costs…” Did you catch that? In other words, the Archdiocese has chosen to address this scandal, not so much as a teaching moment, but as a “public relations” moment.

Now, don’t misunderstand me. I don’t envy Archbishop Gomez in the least. He had his hands full in Los Angeles well before the Zavala scandal came along.

I also want to make it clear that I genuinely feel for the children, who are clearly innocent victims.

As sinners each and every one, we should also feel true empathy for their mother and for Bishop Zavala too. God knows that all of us will one day stand before the judgment seat in desperate need of His mercy.

So, by all means, let us offer “spiritual care” and prayers on behalf of all concerned, but tuition assistance?

How do us parents-in-the-pews apply for help with funding our children’s college costs?

Let me guess – this particular benefit is being made available only to the offspring of serially unfaithful clergymen while we just get to underwrite the whole thing.  Am I the only one who finds this preposterous?

According to an article in the National Catholic Reporter, “it appears that one of the factors that brought this story to light was the complaint by the mother that Zavala was not providing for the education of their children, including their future college education.”

Until I read this, I had simply assumed that Bishop Zavala had finally decided that living the lie was just too much to bear. Now, I wonder. Maybe it wasn’t so much the voice of his conscience that brought this matter to a head, but rather the threats of the mother.

In any event, if the Reporter story is true, it would seem that the Archdiocese is operating under the mistaken impression that it needs to go into “full damage control” mode. This, I can only assume, is a knee-jerk reaction fueled by the memory of “clergy sex scandals” past that almost always meant the homosexual molestation of minors and a pending lawsuit.

My guess as to how things progressed? Call me crazy, but I imagine it went something like this:

The brilliant idea to voluntarily subsidize the kids’ college tuition was initially drawn up by the Archdiocesan PR Department in consultation with the Legal Affairs Sexual Scandal Subcommittee, at which point the proposal was then submitted to the Office of the Archbishop who, acting on the advice of the Office of the General Counsel, provided his official “get ‘er done.”

So, what have we learned?

In addition to whatever insight we gained into the episcopal priorities of Bishop Zavala, who was hailed in the Reporter as “a highly progressive liberationist,” we also discovered why so many people tend to view the Catholic Church as just another corporate enterprise.

All too frequently, She behaves like one.

Murray goes on to quote the Syllabus of Errors of Pope Pius IX, extracting from it what he deems “the decisive proof” that Pope Leo XIII, using this as his guide, was less concerned with the prospect of the Church being “dethroned from its historic status of legal privilege;” asserting instead that was he mainly concerned with assuring a political and juridical system that assured the freedom of the Church, as other religions, in service to human dignity.

“The basic line of battle [for Leo XIII] was drawn by Proposition 39 of the Syllabus” Murray writes. This Proposition condemns the error that maintains that “The state, inasmuch as it is the origin and source of all rights, possesses a power of jurisdiction that knows no limits.”

Murray maintains, “Proposition 39 of the Syllabus was also [concerned with] the destruction of the essential dignity of man, which resides in his freedom. Leo XIII did not greatly attend to this aspect of the matter; it did not lie within his historical problematic. However, by his central emphasis on the freedom of the Church he… opened the way to a widening of the question, thus stated, to include the issue of the freedom of the human person and the issue of religious freedom as a legal institution within a system of constitutional government…”

A close examination reveals yet another flaw in Murray’s approach; namely, he elevates human dignity to the status of absolute, independent of the divine Source in whom all dignity rests.

The “essential dignity of man;” i.e., the very essence of man’s dignity, does not lie in his freedom as Murray insists; rather, it lies in the call to communion with God in whose image and likeness he is created. (See, for example, Gaudium et Spes – 19, which reads, “The root reason for human dignity lies in man’s call to communion with God.”)

Having already labored to elevate “freedom” to the status of the absolute, human dignity as Murray presents it here is a static, unchanging condition that does not exist in degree. This, however, is not the case. Human dignity can indeed be perfected as one’s union with God is perfected. “This dignity is rooted and perfected in God” (Gaudium et Spes – 21).

I won’t belabor the point any further than to call your attention to baptism. Clearly, while the unbaptized person possesses the inherent dignity of one created in God’s image, the person in whom the likeness of God is restored by sanctifying grace, through Baptism, possesses a degree of dignity that is infinitely greater by virtue of the indwelling of the Trinitarian life.

Moving on, Murray falsely identifies freedom as something of a primary resident characteristic of man apart from God, when in fact it is a property that flows from the Divine. It, like human dignity, is likewise possessed in degree according to the relative perfection of our communion with God. That is why the Church alone can lay claim, in the words of Pope Leo XIII, to being “a society eminently independent, and above all others,” for She alone is the Mystical Body of Christ.

To further his claim that historical circumstances alone are enough to justify altering the traditional teaching, Murray turns his attention to Pope Pius XII, whom he claims “read the signs of the times and discerned two that gave direction to his doctrine and pastoral solicitude. The first was totalitarian tyranny on the Communist model. Now the threat was not simply to the freedom of the Church in the traditionally Catholic nations of Europe; the new threat was to the freedom of the people everywhere. An ideology and a system of rule were abroad, ‘which in the end rejected and denied the rights, the dignity, and the freedom of the human person.’”

Here, Murray gives the appearance of quoting Pope Pius XII, however, the footnote in his article calls the reader’s attention to the Encyclical, Divini Redemptoris, which was in fact promulgated by his predecessor, Pope Pius XI.

Substantively, this is of little matter with regard to the point that Murray is attempting to make – a proposition summed up by the claim, “Pius XII abandons completely the Leonine notion of government as paternal,” as though a sense of paternalism alone inspired the “care of religion” as opposed to the divinely imposed obligation to truth.

Murray’s purposes are very clear – to establish a sort of dichotomy between Leo XIII and Pius XII as it concerns the constitution of States, their rights and their duties, so as to substantiate the claim that the traditional teaching is part of an ever-evolving proposition based not upon absolute truths but upon changing circumstances, the composition of governments among them.

It must be noted that Murray bases his assertion at least in part on the rather facile generalization that the Leonine view of government is essentially “paternal” in the first place. This, however, is so incomplete a summation as to represent but a caricature.

It is more accurate to say that the Leonine teaching, which is biblically founded and abundantly clear, is that the rights and duties of the State are similar to those of the individual citizen in that they derive from, and are ordered toward, the One Father of all who is God Almighty. Provided this fundamental truth is duly acknowledged in the way the affairs of the State are conducted, the Church traditionally allows for the existence of many different forms of government (monarchies, democracies, etc.); some of which may arguably be more “paternal” in nature than others.

As Leo XIII wrote, “The right to rule is not necessarily, however, bound up with any special mode of government. It may take this or that form, provided only that it be of a nature of the government, rulers must ever bear in mind that God is the paramount ruler of the world, and must set Him before themselves as their exemplar and law in the administration of the State” (Immortale Dei – 4).

Murray continues, “The freedom of the Church as the community of the faithful is not the sole object of the Church’s concern. The freedom of the human person in his belief in God is also to be recognized and protected against unjust encroachments by legal or social forces. Pius XII accepts this wider problematic of religious freedom. Among the ‘fundamental rights of the person,’ which are to be recognized and promoted by the juridical order of society, he includes the ‘right to private and public worship of God, including also religious action of a charitable kind.’”

By “this wider problematic,” Murray is suggesting  that in response to the repressive regimes that trampled human rights in Pope Pius’ day,  the freedom that the Church had traditionally asserted for Herself alone was then at least implied on behalf of even the false religions in service to the human person. The exercise of “freedom” in the practice of falsehood, however, is more properly understood in a Catholic sense to be a misuse of freedom, and far from a service to the human person, such is in fact detrimental to his dignity.

To make his point, Murray is quoting, and rather selectively so, from the 1942 Christmas Message of Pope Pius XII.

The Holy Father’s comments therein do not in any way reflect tension between his own thoughts and those of his predecessors. In fact, even though the historical circumstances have indeed changed in their details over time (as they always will), the “problematic” itself, as Murray calls it, has not changed (or “widened”) in its essence at all.

Pius XII elucidates the perennial problem thusly:

“Today, as never before, the hour has come for reparation, for rousing the conscience of the world from the heavy torpor into which the drugs of false ideas, widely diffused, have sunk it.”

One clearly sees that among the fundamental concerns common to both Leo XIII and Pius XII are the “false ideas” that the latter decried as having been “widely diffused” to the detriment of mankind in his day, the same which his predecessors had deemed subject to State restriction (or toleration) as the demands of the common good may so dictate, in contrast with the doctrines of the Church that are always and everywhere freely proclaimed.

Murray would have us believe that the Holy Father is at once decrying the regrettable results of those “false ideas, widely diffused” while simultaneously suggesting that their diffusion is a “fundamental personal right.” It should surprise no one to discover that no such contradiction is evident in the text.

The writings of John Courtney Murray that we have examined thus far are by no means all that he had to say on the topic of religious liberty. We have, however, availed ourselves of much of the foundation upon which his arguments must either stand or fall.  At this I would simply encourage you to consider all that we have covered in this series of articles, going more deeply still as you are able, while pondering the question at hand, Was John Courtney Murray right? To that end I have included a bibliography of relevant resources at the conclusion of this article from both the Holy See and from the works of Fr. John Courtney Murray, S.J.

Given that the Second Vatican Council largely adopted Murray’s propositions, this critically important question concerns as well the text of Dignitatis Humanae itself. I do realize that many readers may feel a bit uneasy at the very notion of questioning whether or not the conciliar text can withstand scrutiny by the light of tradition, and to those I would simply offer the following.

The Holy See has made it clear that an “examination and theological explanation of individual expressions and formulations contained in the documents of Vatican Council II and later Magisterium is open to legitimate discussion.” (See Vatican Information Service – Communique Concerning Society of St. Pius X – September 14, 2011.)

Make no mistake, Dignitatis Humanae is one of the primary documents of the Council that not only deserves, but demands such scrutiny. Note as well, that the Holy See includes as subject to this examination the “later Magisterium;” i.e., that which attempted to explain the conciliar decrees to the faithful.

This is no small matter! As an indication of just how important this is with regard to the topic of religious liberty, I will conclude by calling your attention to the regrettable situation in which the Catholic Church finds itself in the United States of America as I write.

Here, the majority of our bishops – like many others the world over – have in good faith adopted with vigor the language and the approach laid out in Dignitatis Humanae. As such, they have ceased in overwhelming measure to proclaim the Social Kingship of Christ, His unique privileges, the unique privileges of His Church, and every citizen’s and every ruler’s duty toward Him.

The end result? Rather than condemning out of hand objective evils like abortion-on-demand and contraception repackaged as “healthcare,” our shepherds have largely been reduced to begging a godless Administration for “conscience clauses” and a seat at the table beside heathens and heretics as though we must content ourselves with adopting a policy of “Have it your way, but let us have ours as well.” This is not intended as an indictment of our shepherds, per se; but rather an indictment of the “updated” notion of “religious liberty” introduced at Vatican II and its predictable results.

As I’ve maintained from the outset, this is perhaps the most pressing issue of our day, both for the Church and for the world at large. For the love of God, don’t shy away from the challenge that lies before us! You may perhaps even consider engaging it an obligation.

Difficult though they may be to face, ask the hard questions, boldly holding them up to the light of tradition for clarity, praying the Holy Ghost to bestow wisdom and understanding upon you, your loved ones, and especially those who are charged with leading the Bride of Christ – the Church Militant – on this journey toward Heavenly perfection.

Bibliography

Pope Pius IX – Syllabus of Errors

Pope Leo XIII – Immortale Dei – On the Christian Constitution of States

Pope Leo XIII – Libertas – On the Nature of Human Liberty

Pope Leo XIII – Officio Sanctissimo – On the Church in Bavaria

Pope Leo XIII – Rerum Novarum – On Capital and Labor

Pope Pius XI – Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio – On the Peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ

Pope Pius XI – Quas Primas – On the Feast of Christ the King

Pope Pius XII – Ci Riesce – Address to Convention of Italian Catholic Jurists

Pope Pius XII – Christmas Message of 1942

John Courtney Murray, S.J. – Published and Unpublished Works – Georgetown University Collection

Dignitatis Humanae – Declaration on Religious Freedom – Second Vatican Council