More Reasons to Avoid Public Education

Why would any Catholic parents subject their children to an atheistic, anti-Christian education, which is all they will receive in a public school?

From Crisis

By Tom Allen

My family experienced public school for the first time this past semester, and it was … well … memorable, up to and including last weekend’s graduation ceremonies.

After 20 years of private Catholic schooling from K through college for our first three children, our youngest daughter, Gracie, ventured across the cultural aisle to finish her junior year at a public high school (name withheld to protect the innocent) after our family’s move to New England at the end of last year. Gracie has always been our adventurous one—spirited, fearless, and sometimes, due to her shielded upbringing, naïve. She is no longer naïve.

The night before her first day, I played Lorne Michael’s Mean Girls for her after years of gentle redirection. The iconic 2004 teen comedy tells the story of a charming and innocent homeschooled girl (Lindsay Lohan) who enrolls in a public high school and is astounded at what she sees. “There’s no way it can be like this, Dad!” Gracie said, as we died laughing at the characters and scenes in the film.

By the end of her first week, she stated emphatically: “The reality is way worse than the movie.”

Real life in America’s public high schools is anything but funny. The students are unmotivated and generally unhappy, and the performance data is sobering. While educational policies in recent decades have produced a shocking conformity of opinion on social issues, they have failed to raise test scores. In fact, our math and science results slipped to 38th and 24th place in the world, respectively, despite the government spending more per student than nearly every other country in the world. Today’s high school graduates are not nearly as well educated as employers need them to be, and the students know it. This means the prevailing attitude is dark, defeatist, and defensive.

Out of the 3,643,000 high school students who graduated this year, less than 10 percent came from private schools, according to the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics. Further cementing her “minority” status was Gracie’s history at schools established and run by mission Catholic homeschooling parents. She and her siblings grew up with the children from the families that ran Catholic Answers, Catholic Exchange, Priests for Life, John Paul the Great Catholic University, Thomas More Law Center, the Ruth Institute, Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund, and St. Paul Street Evangelization, among others. Therefore, this new environment, for her, was like stepping through the looking glass. To her new classmates, she was Alice, and before she knew it, a rising sea of tears was sweeping her away.

At first she was received like royalty. Everyone wanted to drive her to and from school, sit with her at lunch, invite her into their group chats, and hang out with her in study halls. Attractive, fun, and popping with California style, she was an instant sensation. “If you were from Kentucky? Or someplace like that?” one girl without filters said to her, “No one would be paying any attention to you. But since you’re from California? People are mad keen.”

Alas, the positive attention would be short-lived, as Gracie’s viewpoints flowed out through personal encounters, AP class discussions, and group chats. No matter how much I encouraged stealth and strategy, the fact is that Gracie’s love for Jesus Christ, and President Trump, could not be contained. At this New England high school, the former is not known and the latter is despised.

In a class discussion about whether there is such a thing as “truth,” Gracie cut through the relativist twaddle by pointing out that her chair was in fact a chair, not something else, and that furthermore Jesus said, “I am the way the truth and the life!” The desire for and recognition of truth is a desire for reality, she explained, and for God. From that point forward she was seen as a sort of consecrated Alice, whose viewpoints on most subjects could be dismissed as just more “Jesus stuff.”

Unless, of course, the subject was politics—the go-to topic for teachers looking to keep their students awake and engaged. One day, her AP Lang teacher showed footage of the inaugural addresses of Presidents Obama and Trump for purposes of analysis and discussion. The Obama address was met with shouts of affirmation and near unanimous praise while the Trump address produced a surge of hostility and scorn. When Gracie dared defend a few of the numerous salient points made by Trump, the class ridiculed her without mercy. The mimicry and mockery that ensued was like something out of Lord of the Flies, according to Gracie, to the point where the teacher needed to intervene and restore order.

She texted me at the office: “Dad, defending Trump went really badly. I need a pep talk. They attacked me and I feel like crying.”

I quickly replied, “Listen, you’re a hero. You stood up. They’re going to be embarrassed one day and realize that they behaved like little Maoists. Hang in!”

She informed me later that both her AP teachers (the APUSH teacher heard about the incident) had approached her during study hall to commiserate, with the AP Lang teacher promising to initiate a class discussion the next day on civil discourse and freedom of expression, and inviting Gracie to speak “without being judged” if she wanted to.

“Even the nice lib students came up to me and said they were sorry about how I was treated,” Gracie texted. “Mrs. Smith (name changed to protect the innocent) gave me a pep talk, so I feel good about standing up for my beliefs. And by the way, Trump’s inaugural speech is the Best. Speech. Ever. Thanks, Dad. Love!”

The area in which we live now is very Catholic, and while most of Gracie’s classmates identify with a particular parish, few attend Mass regularly, and most are poorly formed. Some classmates marveled about how “Catholic” she is, how comfortable in expressing her faith, and how they’d never met anyone like her before. Between this and her refusal to date, drink, or do drugs, she represented the antithesis of everything they expected from this magnetic girl from California who had crashed their scene a few months earlier.

Even before the presidential speech incident, back when she was merely getting the cold shoulder treatment, Gracie had begun plotting her Escape from New England. She began meeting with her guidance counselor to expand her coursework online and rush an application out to the University of Dallas. She was determined to graduate a year early and get on with her life.

Well, she did it, and last weekend, on a rainy afternoon in an indoor sports arena filled with 2,000 spectators, the graduating class of 2019 filed in to the gentle strains of Pomp and Circumstance like so many before them. There was Gracie, in cap and gown, a huge smile on her face, and all that work behind her. But the cultural shock and awe wasn’t over quite yet.

The valedictory and salutatorian speeches were standard fare, but the crowd was treated to two more, one from a student of African descent who spoke of racism in America—not the kind that affected him personally since he was adopted and raised by loving white parents and surrounded by loving white friends and siblings who cheered his every sentence, but rather the general racism supposedly infecting America that is endlessly discussed in the fashionable press. This charming young man was brought to America, embraced by her sons and daughters, voted into class leadership, and will enter the ranks of the Ivy League with every advantage ahead of him.

The next and final speech, by a young man headed to a different Ivy League school, was the pièce de résistance, the stem-winder, the principal dish of the meal. Everything about Gracie’s experience at this school pointed to and culminated in this speech. The scripting and stage work were pure Tinseltown, as was this dashing lead performer with a secret to share. He opened with all the usual platitudes but pivoted suddenly to “an announcement” that he felt compelled to make. “It’s a bit uncomfortable for me to say this,” he hedged, as I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. “But I wanted to say that I’m attracted to guys. I guess that makes me—I’ve never been comfortable with this word, but here goes—gay!”

I groaned at the banal gay moment that I’d seen play out in various forms in practically every movie I’ve watched over the past 20 years. The ripple effect was predictable but still astonishing. A section of graduates immediately leaped up and started cheering. Others followed. The faculty on the stage took to their feet and applauded with heartfelt sincerity. An animating spirit that was almost visible then swept into the arena prompting more and more people to stand and cheer for all they were worth. The graduates—guys included—were pumping their fists, eyes wide, blood vessels carving crooked lines on their temples and necks. It seemed that this was the greatest news they had ever heard. Only a few graduates and perhaps a third of the parents and families in the horseshoe-shaped arena remained seated; everyone else was behaving as if the Beatles were back or the Boston Bruins had just won Lord Stanley’s Cup.

In the height of the tumult, the man next to me proclaimed in a thick Algerian accent, “They have ruined this country! I came here 25 years ago and it is practically gone. I love this country, but it is done.” We leaned into each other and shared our stories with intensity as the cheering continued. His name was Jamal, and he is a righteous Muslim. He told my wife and children—who thought at first that we were arguing—that he believed God Almighty had placed me next to him so that he would not lose all hope. He said that it had become impossible for him to protect his seventh-grader son, seated in front of him, from the pervasive propaganda that had turned all these students into left-wing crusaders.

The class president finished his speech with one more reveal that was telling and that gained my sympathy: he did not have a father. My heart hurt for him, for he has heard only one side of the story. I looked for him after the ceremony to encourage him not to define himself entirely by the sexual feelings he is having at 18, because life and who he is as a person are so much more than that. But the driving rain scattered the crowds quickly, and the Class of 2019 fanned out into the world without looking back.

To paraphrase Winston Churchill, there is a tremendous battle raging in Lincoln Park and Laguna Niguel, Salem Heights and Ottumwa, and Alderwood Manor and Brownsville. We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us a protracted period of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer simply: revival and restoration, awakening and victory; victory at all costs; victory in spite of all fear; victory, however long and hard the road may be. For without victory, there is no survival for the country and all that it has stood for.

Revival, restoration, and victory—the victory of Christ. This must be our aim. My friend Steve Auth, author of the thoroughly engrossing book The Missionary of Wall Street,has it right. More prayer, more sacraments, and a revival of the kind of direct evangelization that Gracie undertook all alone at the high school she would attend for one semester only, filled with Catholics who knew not their faith or tradition. Let us start there, with the baptized Catholics, and go forward together, united in strength, asking the Holy Spirit to sweep through America enlightening eyes and enflaming hearts so that the Truth will again be known and shouted from the rooftops with the same fist-pumping passion that gushes forth now for all the wrong reasons.

Working Document for Amazon Synod Is Both a Catch-All and a Cover

If a group of conservative Bishops did something like this, these same men would be frothing at the mouth, screaming about 'cultural imperialism'.

From Catholic World Report

By Christopher R. Altieri

It is rather unseemly that a coterie of mostly northern European churchmen are apparently using the pressing issues of a long-suffering local Church in the developing world to advance their pet project in ecclesial sociology.

The working document for the upcoming special assembly of the synod of bishops for the Amazon region has caused quite a stir. Such documents can be concise agendae — little more than bullet points. The ecclesial subspecies of the genre tends to be a “kitchen sink” catch-all into which everything is crammed: so that no idea, suggestion, notion, or back-of-the-napkin scribble goes to waste, no matter how silly, half-baked, or otherwise egregious.

As far as these sorts of documents go, the one we got for the Amazon synod certainly is of the kitchen sink variety. It has all the bullet points: everything anyone could want, and more.

Working documents are wonky by design: usually meant to set an agenda and frame a conversation, rather than to inspire or even inform the broad public. This one does not make for pretty reading. Then, it is not meant to make for pretty reading. It is not a theological treatise. In this case, however, it is not a framework for discussion, either. Nor is it even a unified statement of intent.

Its purpose is twofold: to let everyone with a stake in the meeting be seen to have got his word in, edgewise; to provide cover for the one thing the organizers want. Still, there’s plenty of meat for the picking in the thing.

The document is long. Translated from the Portuguese original, the Spanish version of The Amazon: New Paths for the Church and Integral Ecology comes in at twenty-two thousand words, give or take, footnotes included. It is articulated in three parts: of four, nine, and eight chapters, respectively, over one hundred forty-nine numbered paragraphs. The major divisions are: “The voice of Amazonia”; “Integral Ecology: The Cry of the Earth and of the Poor”; “A Prophetic Church in Amazonia: Challenges and Hopes”.

Part I offers a thorough rehearsal of the Amazon region’s current conditions and circumstances, while the headings for Parts II and III pretty much say what’s in the box. Part II focuses on issues of pressing concern to the people and the physical territory. Part III deals with practical pastoral challenges facing the Church in the region, which is politically, socially, economically, and in terms of global ecology more significant than many — one might dare to say most — people living outside the region recognize.

The Amazon rain forest, through which the Amazon River cuts, produces oxygen and removes carbon dioxide from the whole planet’s air. That, alone, makes it an ecological — hence a strategic — key to security. “The Amazon River basin and the tropical forests that surround it nourish the soil and regulate, through the recycling of moisture, the cycles of water, energy and carbon at the planetary level,” the document’s Paragraph 9 rehearses. “The Amazon River alone casts 15% of the planet’s total fresh water into the Atlantic Ocean each year.” Those facts alone make the Amazon essential for global precipitation and weather patterns. Nevertheless, “[T]he Amazon is the second most vulnerable area of the planet, after the Arctic, in relation to climate change of anthropogenic origin.”

The Amazon basin also serves and sustains human communities of the most diverse and varied sizes, histories, and cultural and ethnographic composition, all of which face — in one way or another — serious and pressing dangers to their ways of life that result from irresponsible exploitation of the region’s natural resources.

Even before one delves into the nitty-gritty questions of indigenous peoples’ rights to their ancient lands and the threats to their ways of life, which the exploitation poses, the raw facts of the situation on the ground in the Amazon constitute a serious political problem for the area, which stretches over eight countries covering roughly a third of South America. “[L]ife in the Amazon,” reads Paragraph 14, “is threatened by environmental destruction and exploitation, by the systematic violation of the basic human rights of the Amazonian population.” Of particular concern is the violation of the rights of indigenous peoples, including their rights to territory, to self-determination, and basic political participation.

“According to the communities participating in this synodal listening,” the document goes on to say, “the threat to life comes from economic and political interests of the dominant sectors of society today, especially extractive companies, often in collusion, or with the permissiveness of local, national governments and traditional authorities (of the indigenous themselves).” In short: A good bit of what happens in Amazonia doesn’t even start in Amazonia, and what happens in Amazonia certainly does not stay in Amazonia.

Nor are the problems of recent vintage. For five centuries, greedy and unscrupulous foreign interlopers have stolen wealth, labor, and children from the peoples of Amazonia. They have raped the land and the people. They have murdered. They still do. There is no getting around this. The peoples of Amazonia have had more than enough, and are not having any more. The Church has not only a right to speak in their behalf, but a duty to stand with Amazonia’s woefully abused sons and daughters, many of whom are her own by adoption.

The leaders of the Church in the Amazon region are trying to hear — to make heard — the people who live there, to offer some sort of systematic response to the challenges that face them, and by extension, everyone. These are global issues in a very large local nutshell, about which the people most directly and immediately interested have often been the least heard and most deliberately ignored.

It’s not that many of the folks, who have complained of the document’s theological idiosyncrasies — not to mention doctrinal departures and apparent derelictions of dogma — are wrong. Cardinal Brandmüller told LifeSite and Kath.net the working document is a piece of heresy. “It is to be stated now with insistence,” Brandmüller wrote, “that the Instrumentum laboris contradicts the binding teaching of the Church in decisive points and thus has to be qualified as heretical.” Then again, these things usually are pretty awful. Brandmüller could well be overstating his case — even the most egregious statements in the document may be susceptible of an orthodox construction — but this one really is special, nonetheless.

The point is that the document is — to switch metaphors — a harvest, hence of wheat with the chaff. If some synod fathers are hoping for a vigorous general threshing, at least a few synod managers appear primarily interested in finding a particular stalk: the one that grew from the seed of optional celibacy, which they sowed early in the growing season.

The stalk made it to the threshing floor. Paragraph 129 calls for the promotion of “autochthonous vocations,” i.e. vocations among indigenous populations, in response to a genuine need for the sacraments in a part of the world where people might see a priest only a few times a year, and then if they’re lucky. Then, the document asks that the fathers — really, that the Holy Father — consider “the possibility of priestly ordination be studied for elderly people, preferably indigenous, respected and accepted by their community,” even if they are married with children. The reason given: “[T]o ensure the availability of the Sacraments that accompany and sustain the Christian life.”

A group of senior churchmen met in the second half of June to discuss the upcoming synod assembly, which is scheduled to take place in October of this year. Most of the people invited to attend that informal preparatory meeting were of German extraction, roughly of the so-called “progressive” wing in the Church, and more-or-less vocal in their willingness to entertain proposals for a change in Church discipline with respect to priestly celibacy. Some of the more sensational reporting couched the gathering as a sort of secret assembly or nocturnal council. In fact, there was nothing terribly secret about it. In any case the issue of relaxing the discipline is on the October agenda.

Wherever one stands on the question of mandatory celibacy for secular priests in the Latin Rite of the Church — this is not the place for a rehearsal of the arguments — it is still difficult not to sympathize with those, who discovered something unseemly in a coterie of mostly northern European churchmen appearing to use the legitimate and urgently pressing issues of a sorely tried and long-suffering local Church in the developing world to advance their pet project in ecclesial sociology.

Pope Francis, meanwhile, seems keen to grant any request the fathers might make in that direction. It isn’t that he didn’t mean what he said on the plane that was carrying him from Panama to Rome, i.e. that he is personally opposed to optional celibacy. He also said he would entertain requests for a change in the discipline. He might well grant such a request — limited and local, under special circumstances, in response to the gravest pastoral necessity, it goes without saying — and for him to acquiesce in despite of his own feelings would show he means what he says about synodal leadership cum petro et sub petro.

Chinese Priests Do Not Need to Register With Government, Vatican Says

Rome trying to put the best interpretation possible on the continued persecution following Francis's betrayal.

From Catholic World Report 

Vatican City, Jun 28, 2019 / 12:40 pm (CNA).- The Vatican issued new guidance for priests and bishops in mainland China on Friday, addressing government requirements that clergy register with the Communist government. 

The document, issued by the Vatican June 28, provides “pastoral guidelines of the Holy See concerning the civil registration of clergy in China.” While recognizing the need to continue efforts to normalize relations between the Catholic community and government authorities, the document “respects the choice” of priests who refuse to register.

“For some time, requests have been received by the Holy See from Bishops in mainland China for a concrete indication of the approach to be adopted in relation to the obligation of presenting an application for civil registration,” the document begins.

Priests in China are required to register with the government in order to be able to minister openly. In the process of doing so, they are expected to acknowledge the government’s policy of “sinicization.”

“Many pastors remain deeply disturbed [at] the modality of such registration,” the Vatican document states.

The Holy See also notes that the act of registration “requires, almost invariably, the signing of a document in which, notwithstanding the commitment assumed by the Chinese authorities to respect also Catholic doctrine, one must declare acceptance, among other things, of the principle of independence, autonomy and self-administration of the Church in China.”

If, the document says, “the text of the declaration required for the registration does not appear respectful of the Catholic faith,” priests should specify – in writing if possible, or else in front of witnesses – that the declaration is made only to the extent it is “faithful to the principles of Catholic doctrine.”

“At the same time, the Holy See understands and respects the choice of those who, in conscience, decide that they are unable to register under the current conditions.”

“The Holy See remains close to them and asks the Lord to help them to safeguard the communion with their brothers and sisters in the faith, even in the face of those trials that each one will have to face.”

The Catholic Church in China has long been split between the underground Catholic Church, which is persecuted and whose episcopal appointments are typically unacknowledged by Chinese authorities, and the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, which is government-sanctioned.

In September 2018 the Holy See and Beijing reached an agreement meant to normalize the situation of China’s Catholics and to unify the underground Church and the CPCA.

Despite Vatican support, that agreement has been roundly criticized by human rights groups and some Church leaders, including Cardinal Joseph Zen Zekiun, Bishop Emeritus of Hong Kong.

The new guidelines acknowledge that the situation in China remains “complex,” and that registration requirements are not necessarily enforced in the same way in all places throughout the mainland. There is, the Vatican says, a need to balance the legitimate concerns of some clergy with the broader aim of regularizing the status of the underground Church.

“On the one hand, the Holy See does not intend to force anyone’s conscience. On the other hand, it considers that the experience of clandestinity is not a normal feature of the Church’s life and that history has shown that pastors and faithful have recourse to it only amid suffering, in the desire to maintain the integrity of their faith.”

“Until such time as a modality for the civil registration of the clergy that is more respectful of Catholic doctrine, and thus of the consciences of those involved, is established,” the Vatican document states, “no intimidatory pressures [may] be applied to the ‘non-official’ Catholic communities, as, unfortunately, has already happened.”

In April of this year, government officials offered a bounty for information leading to the arrest of underground religious leaders. Since the signing of the provisional agreement in September, 2018, several Catholic bishops and priests have been either arrested or detained by state authorities.

At a Congressional hearing held in Washington on June 27, Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), co-chair of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, said that religious persecution in China has “never been worse than it is right now.”

“Under ‘sinicization,’ all religions and believers must comport with and aggressively promote communist ideology — or else,” Smith said.

“Religious believers of every persuasion are harassed, arrested, jailed, or tortured. Only the compliant are left relatively unscathed. Bibles are burned, churches are destroyed, crosses set ablaze atop church steeples.”

Noting that article 36 of the Chinese constitution explicitly guarantees religious freedom, the new Vatican guidelines reference the 2018 provisional agreement’s recognition of the “independence” of the Church in China.

This independence should in no way be interpreted as an independence from the authority of the pope, the guidelines say, and the term is only to be understood “relative to the political sphere, as happens everywhere in the world in the relations between the Universal Church and the particular Churches.”

As the situation develops, the Vatican document urges the faithful in China to take an understanding approach to different decisions made in good conscience by their leaders.

“It is important,” the document says, “that the lay faithful not only understand the complexity of the situation but in addition accept with an open heart the anguished decision taken by their pastors, whatever it may be. The local Catholic community should accompany them in a spirit of faith, with prayer and affection, refraining from any judgement of the choices of others, maintaining the bond of unity and demonstrating mercy towards all.”

Being Christian in Xinjiang: Suppressed and Persecuted

The hell into which Francis betrayed the Church in China!

From Bitter Winter 

By Li Mingxuan

House church believers from Shandong share their experience of a perilous trip to the Uyghur region to check on how fellow religionists practice their faith.

The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, notorious for the suppression of the ethnic Muslim population, is also a dangerous place for anyone religious. Like in the rest of China, house church Christians in the far western region of China are also strictly controlled. This is what a group of Christians from the eastern province of Shandong learned when they visited Xinjiang last October. They shared their impressions with Bitter Winter.

Talking about faith is taboo

As soon as the visitors entered Xinjiang, they felt that the general atmosphere was extremely tense. “Fully-armed police were everywhere, with security checkpoints every few meters. Surveillance cameras and monitoring facilities were all over the place. Everything people do is controlled by the government. I took a photo at a scenic spot and soon, a police officer forced me to delete the photo,” one of the visiting Christians remembered.

If four or five people are chatting on the street, the police will come to question them about what they are doing, and then force them to disperse. “While we were discussing faith in a public space, a local child next to us kept reminding us not to talk about such things,” the Christian added.

On a Sunday, they passed by a Three-Self church and discovered police cars parked in front of the entrance and numerous officers keeping guard. Each person who wanted to get inside was required to show their ID card and undergo an inspection.

A dangerous visit

The local believers said that the situation for Christians in Xinjiang is awful. “Why did you come? Do you have a death wish?” they asked the visitors.

“They said that the government can detain Christians without any reason and that some people who had been arrested haven’t been heard from since. They lamented how terrifying their life is,” one of the visiting Christians told Bitter Winter.

The Shandong Christians didn’t dare to contact local believers by phone because all phone calls are monitored. They feared that if they made the slightest mistake, their fellow Christians would be implicated. One of the local Christians recounted how he once mentioned the Chinese word for “God” (Shàngdì) on the phone, and the call was cut off shortly afterward. To arrange meetings, they usually speak in code on the phone, like “Let’s go out to eat some lamb.”

According to a local Christian, some Three-Self church pastors have been arrested and sent to transformation through education camps, with no information on when they will be released.

Not safe to hold religious gatherings

Local Christians said that it isn’t safe to hold gatherings at home. A local woman who used to host meetings in her apartment stopped doing so in fear of persecution. She added that due to the strict surveillance and regular crackdowns on places of worship, many house churchesare also unable to hold gatherings regularly.

Surveillance cameras are installed in practically every residential community; and to enter, everyone must swipe an electronic card. A display screen shows the number of people that have come for a visit to each apartment. Believers are usually holding gatherings in the early morning hours, around 5 a.m., before community staff start their work. This adverse situation has resulted in many believers having no one to minister them; proselytization is even more difficult.

Community management staff also go door to door to investigate residents’ religious beliefs. Those that are registered as religious are required to go to the community office once a week to study national policies and “patriotic knowledge.”

To avoid being spotted by the authorities during the visit, the Christians rented two traditional nomadic dwelling tents, the yurts, at a tourist attraction site, where they spent the whole day talking, one of them keeping watch outside at all times.

 On one of the visit days, the Christians rented a tourist bus to hold a meeting in, driven to a sparsely populated area. The driver, who wasn’t a Christian, left the bus to keep watch for them.

Yes, Abortion Is Historically Linked to Eugenics

GKC wrote his Eugenics and Other Evils in 1922, so this is not exactly a new front in the war against the Culture of Death.

From Mercatornet

By Christopher M. Reilly

Even today, some bioethicists insist that parents should ‘improve the stock’

Charts used in the 1920s at a Kansas Free Fair show types of marriage.

Advocates for abortion rights are claiming that a recent legal opinion of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, which described abortion as a tool of eugenics, is merely an incoherent “rant.”They argue that his well-researched, 20-page document conflates the free choices of women to abort their children with the state-led imposition of eugenics.

This narrow definition of eugenics is a dangerous tactic that obscures the many problems with a new, “liberal eugenics” in the 21st Century.

As I explained in a June 21 article in American Thinker: “At its core, eugenics is really all about hatred: hatred of limitations imposed by the natural body and mind, hatred of a God who allows the human condition of suffering and shame, and hatred of any person who has the audacity to live with the unwanted afflictions.”

It is an ideology and activity aimed at eliminating unwanted inherited characteristics in human beings.

Many critics of Thomas contend that eugenics is a state-led activity, thereby limiting the eugenics ideology to some notorious government-led programs in the 20th Century. At that time, public authorities in the United States were heavily involved in 60,000 forced sterilizations. Nazi Germany’s atrocities against the disabled, followed by the Holocaust, was certainly a state-led effort.

Much eugenic activity, however, occurred in civil society, including “fitter families” contests at state and world fairs, college eugenics courses that by 1928 had indoctrinated 20,000 studentsannually, an extensive propaganda by eugenics advocates, and media support for eugenics, A silent film, The Black Stork, was released in 1919 which dramatised a controversy over a Chicago doctor who let babies with birth defects die. Physicians were enthusiastically involved in sterilizations in both the US and Nazi Germany and mental institutions were often used to remove the “unfit” from society.

The critics also have attacked Justice Thomas’ credibility in explaining the intertwined history of abortion advocacy and eugenics. Paul Lombardo, of George State University, for example, declared in the Washington Post that “I’ve been studying this stuff for 40 years, and I’ve never been able to find a leader of the eugenics movement that came out and said they supported abortion.”

It is difficult to see how Lombardo could make such a claim, since Alan Guttmacher was President of Planned Parenthood and previously a Vice President of the American Eugenics Society, and Population Council and Pioneer Fund founder Frederick Osborn wrote that “birth control and abortion are turning out to be great eugenic advances of our time." Justice Thomas provided five references to written support of abortion by eugenicists.

Unfortunately, ideological goals seem to have obscured the true nature of eugenics. Thomas cites the definition of eugenics given by Francis Galton, who should know because he coined the term. Galton described eugenics as “the science of improving stock” through “all influences that tend in however remote a degree to give to the more suitable races or strains of blood a better chance of prevailing speedily over the less suitable than they otherwise would have.”

Thomas links eugenics to the ideology of “social Darwinism” that applied Charles Darwin’s notion of “survival of the fittest” to moral claims of superiority of the supposed best persons in society, usually understood as a matter of wealth, culture, moral behavior, and/or race. In a footnote, Thomas points out that eugenics was focused on simplistic and deterministic theories that attributed immorality and poverty to genetics.

The core point of eugenics is not to empower the state, but to use any means necessary for eliminating unwanted inherited characteristics. When Thomas’ critics narrow the definition of eugenics to purely state-led efforts, they also narrow the time frame of eugenics to the historical period of the early to mid-20th Century.

They also exclude the very possibility that an activity like abortion, which is generally enacted by individual choice, could have a eugenics agenda or effect. We should, however, recognize that eugenics is as much a civil society effort as a governmental one. That will allow us to evaluate Justice Thomas’ argument in a more effective manner, whether we support abortion rights or not.

It is very important that, in addition to abortion, we pay close attention to eugenics in the rapidly developing field of genetic engineering of human beings. Edits of embryos’ DNA have already resulted in live births, and more are coming soon.

Scholars who are often grouped under the label “liberal eugenics” – including Nicholas Agar, Jonathan Glover, Jeff McMahan, Ronald Green, and Allen Buchanan – are boldly promoting genetic engineering procedures not only to reduce the presence of inherited diseases and abnormalities, but to dramatically increase new persons’ physical and mental capabilities.

Some, like Julian Savulescu, a professor at Oxford University, claim that we have a moral and public obligation, not just the right, to genetically enhance new children; he says little about how this leads quickly into government regulation and oppression.

Princeton’s Peter Singer, in Practical Ethics and elsewhere, has been arguing that any human being that is not fully capable of “rational” thought, including infants and intellectually disabled persons, may and often should be killed for the benefit of parents and society.

The conflict between progressive historians and Justice Thomas brings up some troubling considerations. Well-informed, eloquent and intelligent scholars can still be biased. As bioethicists, I think we need to take Thomas’s critics to task for misleading the public.

On the other hand, historians and bioethicists (and philosophers and theologians) have every right to hold ideological positions and even to direct their work according to those positions. The key for professional integrity is that we make our positions very clear, and that we do not mistake ideology, which is a collection of ideas that generate a particular world view but are not entirely logically consistent, with responsible arguments. When we write or speak as professionals, we need to maintain the higher ethic of working through our assumptions and defending them with clarity to our peers.

Speaking of defending a position, I’m advocating against the eugenic and other problems associated with genetic engineering of human embryos, at www.humanpreservation.org. Any feedback is appreciated and can be submitted via a survey on the website or sent to humanpreservationleague@gmail.com.

Christopher M. Reilly is a graduate student in theology and bioethics at Holy Apostles College and Seminary and holds a Master’s degree in public affairs from the University of Pittsburgh.

It’s Not Just Israel Folau’s Future That’s at Stake

A former 'gay activist' discusses the Israel Folau case and the evil it foreshadows.

From The Catholic Weekly 

By James Parker 

Now is not the time for silence

If you haven’t joined the dots, let me help you. As I write, it is the end of LGBTQI+ Pride Month and the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, renowned for birthing what we today call gay rights.

Join these dots to news earlier this week that Australia’s rugby sensation, Israel Folau, had his GoFundMe campaign to cover $3 million of legal costs taken down. Why? Because GoFundMe Australia believed Folau’s campaign violated the organisation’s terms of service.

What inclusivity?

Their regional manager, Nicola Britton, stated, “As a company, we are absolutely committed to the fight for equality for LGBTQI+ people and fostering an environment of inclusivity.”

Is this “absolutely committed” fight for equality at the expense of “fostering an environment of inclusivity” for the remaining ninety-six percent of the population? Yes, it is. Note the evident hypocrisy and double standards.

Thirty years ago, I was a gay activist wholeheartedly engaged with others in the fight for gay rights. We lobbied for welcoming spaces where anyone, especially the young, could openly admit and take stock of their erotic attraction to the same sex. I still believe in fighting for these appropriate spaces today.

What we as activists did not fight for are the diatribe and vitriol presently awash in the brains and hearts of youth and adults alike, attitudes which have given rise to increased division, discrimination and silencing within our society.
Rights became vitriol

The vilification and exclusion of a Bible-believing Christian like Israel Folau personifies this.

Gay activists even 30 years ago believed our battle was about engaging in debates, in the hope that we might win a few. We never fought to see debate shut down entirely as now consistently occurs. The inclusion and tolerance we fought for years ago have been concreted over by widespread prejudice and crippling domination.

How the tide has turned. Voltaire, who advocated for freedom of speech and religion, once penned “to learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticise”.

Corporate Christophobia in Australia

Christophobia is certainly alive in Australia – in Rugby Australia, in Qantas, in the AFL and NRL, in GoFundMe, in Ben & Jerry’s, in Apple, in Google to name but a few. Add this to social media apps like Tumblr which prompts users to “educate, advocate,” and more markedly to “celebrate” everything LGBTQI+.

The so-called love that dared not speak its name now refuses to shut up. It leads in brutally silencing every voice that categorically refuses to celebrate its perverted and divisive doctrine and practices.

Even nonconformist voices within the LGBTQI+ community – and believe me there are a rising number of them – are prevented from criticising diabolical advocacy from within their own ranks.

LGBTQI+ rights are no longer about society’s, or even the churches’, acceptance of those who do not experience heterosexual attraction. If you hadn’t noticed, that battle was for the most part won some time ago.

No. This is about silencing every voice that dares to challenge the Judeo-Christian, and even the Islamic, premise that every person can, and does, sin. It is a battle against the very nature of God.

Birth of a harsher discrimination

So what do I believe we can construe 50 years after the Stonewall Riots? Although consistently told the fight is against bigoted, exclusive, depraved and diabolical attitudes towards sexual minorities, the reverse is in fact true. A harsher, more destructive social discrimination has been birthed where common sense and differing opinions are now demonised.

We are not talking about the rights for your family member or classmate being permitted to legally live out an eroticised best friendship with a person of the same sex. That’s another conversation altogether. This is about the very deliberate formation of a new world order.

What is happening to Folau today could well happen tomorrow to you, your children, or to their children en route to any school, church, synagogue, mosque or temple.

Fortunately, mostly thanks to the internet, many young people who today question their sexual attraction are seeing the duplicity and malice dished out by those claiming to fight for their rights, such that they are starting to reject the advocacy and celebration of all things LGBTQI+. These are the ones most isolated and requiring support.
A new stone wall

For five decades a now-visible, noxious stone wall has meticulously been constructed under the guise of gay rights. Rather than being celebrated, the foundations of this toxic wall need to be dismantled if society at large is to ever truly extinguish discrimination and exclusion now paraded within LGBTQI+ rights.

The wall needs replacing with the temple veil torn in two from top to bottom which provides God’s stance on inclusion, tolerance and compassion towards all. We need the ultimate love that has dared to speak its name for two thousand years. The love which is not threatened by differing opinions and the necessity of debate. The love which offers swift access to an ocean of mercy when challenged with any aspect of sin.

This is the time not for silence. It is time for us to join the dots and to actively be involved in standing not only for Israel Folau’s basic rights as a fellow Australian, but for our own rights to freedoms and those of every neighbour.

The Catechism of the Summa - XIII. OF MAN: HIS NATURE; HIS SPIRITUAL AND IMMORTAL SOUL (A)

(A) 

Is there anything in this world which forms as it were a world apart, a being that is wholly distinct from the rest of the world created by God?

Yes; and this being is man.

What is man?

Man is a composite of spirit and body, in whom the world of spirits and the world of bodies in some sort coalesce (LXXV.).

What is the spirit called that is in man?

It is called the soul (LXXV. 1-4).

Is man the only being in the world of bodies that has a soul?

No. Besides man plants and animals have souls.

What is the difference between the soul of man and the souls of plants and animals?

There is this difference, the soul of a plant has only vegetative life, the soul of an animal has both vegetative. and sensitive life, whereas the soul of man has in addition an intellective life.

Is it then by intellective life that man is distinct from all other living beings in this world? 

Yes

Is this intellective life of the soul of man, in itself, independent of his body?

Yes (LXXV. 2).

Can any reason be given to establish this truth?

Yes; and the reason is because the object of thought is something wholly immaterial.

But how does it follow from this that the human soul in its intellective life is, in itself, independent of body? 

This follows because if the soul itself were not wholly immaterial it could not attain by thought to an object wholly immaterial (ibid.).

What follows from this truth?

It follows that the soul of man is immortal (LXXV. 6).

(Next - The Catechism of the Summa - XIII. OF MAN: HIS NATURE; HIS SPIRITUAL AND IMMORTAL SOUL (B))

Pegues OP, R P Thomas. Catechism of the "Summa Theologica" of Saint Thomas Aquinas for the Use of the Faithful (pp. 62-64). Veritatis Splendor Publications. Kindle Edition.

Epiphany through Mary

Fr. Giles speaks on Our Lady during the “Day With Mary” held at St. Gerard Majella Parish in Westminster, Western Australia on 2 January 2016.

Pope Francis: Is he the Pope or the False Prophet?

Profound! I pray for Francis every day, in my daily prayers, in my Rosaries, and at every Holy Mass I hear. I pray for his conversion to Catholicism.

From Toronto Catholic Witness 

By Barona

Over the past few months there are those who are claiming the Pope is not the Pope. These voices have become more hysterical as the crisis deepens (this is obviously the work of Lucifer to induce Catholics to abandon the Faith due to Francis' "apostasy"). 

Let us ask ourselves:

Who would declare the Pope has lost his "office", and by what authority?

Who would decide what "manifest heresy" is, and by what authority? 

I refer readers to an article written a number of years ago by Br. Andre Marie, in which he wrote the following: 

Regarding the possibility of an heretical pope and his consequent loss of office, I would like to present another argument. Supposing we were to follow the opinions of certain authors that if a pope were to fall into heresy, he would then lose his office. Then suppose that we were to apply that opinion to a certain pope. At best, what we have accomplished is to establish, based upon theological speculation, the possibility that the See of Peter could be vacant. That is all we could do, given the uncertain nature of this situation. At this point, the individual Catholic is at a moral juncture: Either accept a man as the Roman Pontiff whom he thinks might not be pope, or reject him. If he realizes that the claimant to the Apostolic See might be the pope — and he has to admit that he might be — then rejecting the claimant constitutes a schismatic act.  

Let me explain. This is what is known in moral theology as a “practical doubt.” About this “practical doubt” the Jesuit moralist, Father Slater, says the following. “If I eat meat with a practical doubt as to whether it is not forbidden on that day by the Church, I commit a sin of the same kind and malice as if I ate meat knowingly on a day of abstinence.” Apply this to the pontificate. If I refuse my subjection to the Roman Pontiff with a practical doubt as to whether or not he is the pope, I commit an act of schism. It’s a form of spiritual Russian Roulette. 

Let those who have already fallen into sedevacantism consider Br.Andre Marie again:

“Yes, and we all know what our Lord did. He deposed the high priest and declared the Seat of Moses vacant! Didn’t He?” The point is simply this: If the Man-God himself had enough respect for the sovereign pontiff of the law of types and figures as to say of the heretical Jew who was soon to murder Him, that he sat “in the seat of Moses,” how does anyone in the present law, the more perfect law, dare to do the opposite? Let me spell this out. Our Lord was not a sedevacantist. The evil deicide heretic who had authority over the “church” of Israel, was still the head of the true Religion. The religious society of the Old Law was still intact. 

Anyone wishing to save his soul could look to this office for leadership. Its sacrifices were accepted by God, and despite the abusive use to which it was put, the prophetical office was even maintained by this man. What did St. John say about Caiphas’ prophesy of our Lord’s death? “And this he spoke not of himself: but being the high priest of that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for the nation.” No matter how you view it, the present Pope’s actions come nowhere near the iniquity of Caiphas.

Friends, the temptation to schism (and heresy) will increase as Rome darkens. DO NOT abandon the Faith for some Synagogue of Satan. The Church is ONE and She is visible. 

We have a lot of spiritual work before us. Are we ready and willing to take on this task? If we are, then we can delay the coming of Antichrist and his False Prophet. 

At the coming of Antichrist there will be an imposter on the Throne of Peter, a bishop, but not the Pope: he is known in Sacred Scripture as the False Prophet, and he will serve Antichrist. 

However, we have yet to see the manifestation of Antichrist, a Jew who will be the agent of Lucifer and a monstrous parody of Our Lord Jesus Christ. However, we do see definite spiritual and geopolitical signs that the stage is being set for the manifestation of the Man of Perdition. 

It is our duty, as Catholics, to pray for the Pope, as it was the duty of Jews to pray for Caiphas, the "pope" of the then, true Old Testament Church. The Jews failed in their duty, and Caiphas committed the greatest spiritual crime in history: Deicide.

With the Crucifixion of the Messiah, the Jews fell into mass apostasy and the faithful remnant of Israel entered the Church, the New and only Israel. Let us pray for the Pope, so that he does not commit the second gravest crime in history: becoming the False Prophet, and serving Antichrist.

Pray for the Pope, pray for the conversion of the Jews. 

Fontgombault Sermon for St Peter & St Paul: "The Times in Which We Live Are Not Worse Than the First Years in the Life of the Church. It Is Faith That We Are Lacking."

Happy Feast of the Apostles, Ss Peter and Paul!

From Rorate Cæli

Sermon of the Right Reverend Dom Jean Pateau

Abbot of Our Lady of Fontgombault

Fontgombault, June 29, 2019

Tu es Petrus et super hanc petram ædificabo Ecclesiam meam

Thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build My Church.

Mt 16:18

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

My dearly beloved Sons,

The readings of today’s Mass place us before a great mystery: in order to come towards men, God wishes to make use of mediations. He comes to us through Christ’s humanity, through the sacraments, and especially the sacrament of the Eucharist. He comes to us through the Blessed Virgin Mary, in her divine motherhood, and in this unique motherhood she exercises on each of us, and which she has received at the foot of the Cross: “Woman, behold thy son… Behold thy mother.”(Jn 19:26-27) God also comes to us through the Church, pure and without blemish.

Beneath these perfect mediations, God wishes to make use of other mediations. We should be for one another mediators of the grace of God. God builds up our spiritual being by taking our neighbors on as associates. It is an honor for them. We should do the same. How could we refuse such a “service”? Amidst these imperfect mediations, a special place is assigned to the mediation of Peter, the chief of the Apostles, who is still at work today through his successors: “Thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build My Church.”

These words, pronounced by the Lord near Caesarea Philippi, contain a twofold assertion. First and foremost, it is the Lord, and the Lord only, Who builds His Church. Then, He builds her by using Peter as a foundation, so that the gates of hell will not prevail against her. Peter receives the power to bind and to loose: whatever he binds or looses on earth is also bound or loosed on earth.

Today, the ship of the Church is buffeted and tossed about. Peter’s teaching is called in doubt. According to a theologian, a Dominican nun, the Church should give up “all claims to any expertise or proficiency in terms of holiness, truth, or morals”. A Catholic daily wishes “to rebuild”, “to repair” the Church. It is a praiseworthy aim, indeed; yet, wouldn’t there be a risk to forget that it is Christ Himself Who builds His Church? Everything that man will build or construct outside Christ and His will shall be built on sand, and will have no future. Building on Christ is building on truth. Ignorance, either voluntary or unintentional, of God and His laws, in priests and Christians, is the primary cause of the events which the world today discovers with dismay. The rebuilding entails the conversion of all of us, and this conversion begins with a humble acknowledgement of our own faults.

In the preface of a beautiful little book entitled Lettres à nos amis qui divorcent (Letters to our friends who divorce), Bishop Jean-Pierre Batut comments on a verse of the Gospel of St. John: “I have called you friends, because all things, whatsoever I have heard of my Father, I have made known to you.” (Jn 15:15) He writes:

Those who listen to the Father might make bold to appropriate these words. The Church, too: through Christ, her Lord, she has learnt from the Father what she tells men; and she has thus become the minister, the servant of the friendship with God for all men and women. The word of truth, where friendship goes to the extreme, is the word of the Church.

Thus, the Lord expects from His Church, and He expects from Peter, the gift of truth to men. A true love for men and women entails this price. It is something demanding, and it is not something new. Why should Herod Agrippa have afflicted the first Christians, apart for the fact that their teaching was not in line with current tastes? Peter was therefore put in prison under heavy guard.

What are we to do, then? The Book of the Acts of the Apostles retails how the Church, during Peter’s imprisonment, was praying. She turned herself towards the Lord. It is from an authentic prayer that stems a life which is consistent with God’s teaching, and which in its turn becomes a prayer. After he had taught in the synagogue, Jesus was cast away from Nazareth to be thrown down from a hill brow; but behold, he passed through the midst of them and went on his way (cf. Lk 4:30). Likewise, Peter also passes through the guard posts, and he says: "Now I know in very deed that the Lord hath sent his angel and hath delivered me out of the hand of Herod." (Acts 12:11) Far from making us compromise with the world, and whereas the Church’s name is so often dragged through the mud, and her words discredited, these events invite us to faith, they demand of us holiness.

As the conclusion of a recent address, Cardinal Robert Sarah had these words:

I say to you again with Pope Benedict: yes, the Church is full of sinners. But she is not in crisis, we are the ones who are in crisis. The devil wants to make us doubt. He wants to make us believe that God abandons His Church. But no, she is always the field of God. There are not only tares, but also the crops of God. “To proclaim both with emphasis is not a false form of apologetics, but a necessary service to the Truth,” says Benedict XVI. He proves it, and his prayerful and teaching presence in our midst, in the heart of the Church, in Rome, confirms it for us. Yes, in our midst are the beautiful crops of God. (Address given in Rome, Centre Saint-Louis, May 14th, 2019.)

If Christ builds His Church, then it is our remit to flee from despair and summon up our strength, to build anew, with the help of God, Christendom, attractive monasteries, radiant parishes and Christian families, and thus have happy priests and bishops. The times in which we live are not worse than the first years in the life of the Church. It is faith that we are lacking, the faith that moves mountains.

If we consider these two pillars of the Church we celebrate today, we can see a faith at work, a faith that did move mountains. May the holy Apostles Peter and Paul intercede for us, for the so many priests ordained during these days, for all the priests, the bishops and the Pope, for the Church.

Amen.