Many readers may be aware of a despicable play being staged – at least partly at taxpayer expense – in the city of New York, a version of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar set in modern times with an obvious Trump stand-in as Caesar and with a particularly gruesome assassination scene involving the pretended president. This is of course extremely nasty and just the kind of perverse fantasizing the Left frequently resorts to when they get their feelings hurt by a public repudiation of their political-social program (i.e., when the lose a presidential election).
Many on the right see on this just a small part of the environment that led an avowed and extreme leftist loser to try to murder a number of Republican Congressmen at a baseball practice last week. Only Steve Scalise among the Congressmen was hit, and he badly, but the intent was to murder many others if possible. The gunman even had drawn up a target list. He felt justified in his action after steeping himself in the fetid bathhouse air of the leftist fever swamps of the internet, wherein it is constantly claimed that even the minor changes to Obamacare proposed by the timid Republicrats in Congress amounts to MURDER, because millions were dying in the streets before Obamacare, and even slight changes will bring the same or even worse. Thus, since Republicans intend to kill millions (or thousands, or whatever number they make up out of whole cloth), it is thus entirely justified to kill them before they get the chance to callously kill others. It’s practically self-defense! Or so it goes in the far Left, where attachment to reality has become increasingly tenuous.
At any rate, this play is, to many increasingly troubled conservatives, just part of an over-arching effort by the Left not only to make any non-Leftist views completely verboten in the public sphere, but also to create an environment in which actual physical attacks against the Left’s perceived enemies is not just tolerated, but practically a life or death necessity. We have seen steadily increasing violence from the Left since the shock of Trump’s election and the entire ridiculous #resistance movement, from the Berkeley riot on Feb 1 through several other Berkeley riots (with increasingly effective conservative counter-revolutionary action), to New Orleans, Portland, Olympia, WA, and other locales. In virtually every instance it is the Left that is either initiating the violence, or ramping it up to an entirely new level.
And as I mentioned, there have been increasing responses from the “right,” or even centrist free speech advocates. One of those responses was seen this past weekend, where people associated with Gavin McGinnes/Rebel Media stormed the Julius Caesar travesty cum play and briefly interrupted it with shouts decrying the play’s seeming incitement to violence. As seen below:
A bit to my surprise, many on the right, at least in the form of Youtube videos and comments, were troubled by this action. They felt that in disrupting this play thse people were just aping some of the worst aspects of the Left. Given that, here is another video where those interrupting the play defended their actions:
So what do you make of this? Is it bad practice to do what the Left has done for decades, and take the fight into their bastions and call them out for the evil they are promoting?
I have seen these brief interruptions described as an assault on free speech. I’m not sure I agree with that – first of all, as a Catholic, this country has made an idol of certain liberties that are disordered at best and positively destructive at worst, free speech permitting blasphemy and sacrilege being just one example (and far from the worst – the cult of official state religion as agnosticism is the worst). I am not a free speech absolutist, in that sense. To me, however, even granting the erroneous assumption of free speech as a practical absolute short of incitements to violence, it seems just as much free speech to interrupt the event as it is to put it on in the first place. These protesters were not nearly so disruptive as the Left has tended to be at conservative events. They made their point, and were quickly dragged off stage. Thus, they did not deny anyone else’s ability to speak – contrary again to how the Left tends to behave in these situations.
But is it bad precedent, or tending in the same direction many rightly revile the Left for? Possibly. I do think there is some value in the Right – if it is the Right – making these kinds of demonstrations, especially where they occurred, in the very belly of the beast, amongst the most fervent and destructive adherents of the religion of leftist secular paganism. Right smack dab in the middle of NYC. That’s much more speaking truth to power than any of the leftist shenanigans we’ve seen in recent months and years. And it points up an important fact – that the Left has become the establishment, that it is not in the least bit countercultural or cutting edge, it is the forcibly ingrained status quo, the default setting of the vast majority of the economic, political, and especially cultural elites. There is great value in showing the corruption and evil inherent in the status quo, even in what many may see as an ineffective way.
So, I’m pretty sympathetic to the protesters and their aims. Then again, I’m the kind of guy who thinks large format photos showing the brutal reality of abortion are a key way of demonstrating the reality of this evil to a callous and uncaring world. In fact, I’d be up for some of the civil disobedience tactics of the 70s and 80s, like human chains blocking access to abortion mills and the like. Maybe I just have a default setting towards confrontation. I could be wrong.
Then again, if “we” on the Right make broad use of our adversary’s nastier tactics, do we lose moral standing and, even unwittingly, adopt some of their “might makes right” attitude? I can definitely see some issue with that. Unfortunately, the Left is not going to back down. This is the new normal folks. It is not going to go away – and it may be a bit worse because of the person of Trump, but the Left is increasingly showing they will refuse any but their own as President of the United States. They got warmed up with that attitude with Bush ’43 and it has sunk in, metastasized, and grown far worse.
I am very interested to know what readers – if there are any left – think about this. Let me know in the comments.
PS – It may be some time before I finish the posts on the San Antonio Missions. I had transferred all the pics from my phone to my laptop, then my son set my laptop down in a puddle of water on the kitchen table that another kid failed to wipe up properly, and my laptop is now toast. I lost some blog-related things, including the Mission photos, but much more, I lost a boatload of work. I would have had a little time to post this week, buuuut……..now I’m having to recreate about 2 weeks worth of work. Goes faster the second time, but anyway……
There have been growing pronouncements from both the Vatican and the SSPX leadership that the two camps – if that is the right term – appear close to a formal accord regularizing the SSPX’s canonical situation. Just today, the Secretary of the Ecclesia Dei Commission, Archbishop Guido Pozzo, said full communion is near:
We are working at this moment in the completion of some aspects of the canonical frame, which will be the Personal Prelature.” Archbishop Guido Pozzo, Secretary of the Ecclesia Dei commission, charged with dialogue with the Society of Saint Pius X, confirms [SSPX Superior-General Fellay’s words] to Vatican Insider that the stage of full communion with the Lefebvrians is near. The accomplishment of the agreement is now in plain sight, even if some time is still needed
I am of two minds over this: I have prayed for this for years, and there would be tremendous potential for great benefit to the Church by this successful regularization. However, I am exceedingly troubled that it is occurring during this most perilous of pontificates. Outbreaks of persecution against Tradition seem to be growing around the Church. More and more regions are implementing Amoris Laetitia, and thus radically changing both public belief and practice, along the lines of Francis’ own interpretation of that document. This means a crisis over doctrine appears to be inevitable. While it would be wonderful to have the SSPX back in full, regular canonical status and thus adding a great voice to the defense of the Faith (not that they are not already doing this), I have great trepidation for the future.
I am curious what people affiliated with the Society think about this. I am an outsider looking in, but I do have a great deal of interest in this matter, as I am convinced that there will be strong impact on the Ecclesia Dei groups no matter how SSPX “reconciliation” turns out. Is there an element of regularization at any price in this? Is this the pontificate under which it would really be optimal, even sensical, for regularization to take place? What happened in Campos? Was the SSPX-SO critique basically accurate, then?
What will the impact be to the Ecclesia Dei communities? Once the SSPX is regularized, a major reason for their existence would seem to have been removed. If Summorum Pontificum is truly under threat, as many feel, is it beyond reason to envision a perfect storm settling not only on the availability of the TLM but on the entire traditional movement? After the rape of the Knights of Malta and the crushing of the Franciscans of the Immaculate, is the risk in moving at this time warranted?
The question is not whether this is desirable. Of course it is. The question is whether this is wise now, with this pontificate, with this most underhanded and authoritarian of men wielding ultimate power in the Church? Bishop Fellay and some of his close associates maintain that if there is any kind of double-cross, the SSPX can simply return to their current status. Perhaps. But that entire structure required a very unique personality (Archbishop Lefebvre) and a very particular series of events to evolve to the current status quo. I am not entirely certain the personalities and the potentialities would be prevalent for a repeat. In fact I tend to think they simply will not –after all, +Lefebvre did not set out to wind up in a canonically irregular status when he founded his seminary for training priests back around 1970. He wanted to remain within the structure of the Church, but was forced by conscience, circumstance, and frequent bungling, even ill-will, on the part of Church authorities to arrive at the destination arrived in 1988. That is, my read on this whole history was, none of it was premeditated, the arrival at a canonically irregular position was achieved by circumstance. But to leave after regularization would mean to premeditatedly return to irregularity (or whatever one wants to call it).
Plus, moral surrenders – if this be one, and I’m not certain that it would be, but it has potential to be one – are (humanly) impossible to recover from.
I am more or less convinced that should this regularization take place, there will be no going back, for good or for ill. I also badly fear the example of the sons of Bishop Castro-Mayer in the Diocese of Campos, Brazil. Many feel a near total capitulation to the post-conciliar ethos has transpired in that odd subset of a diocese.
Again, I’m especially interested to learn what people with a close association with the SSPX are thinking, but all comments are welcome on this most complex of topics.
Sorry I’ve been away. Work, yes, but a certain lack of motivation to blog, too. There are momentous doings today and tonight, however, and I thought I could at least put up a post about that.
Reports are all over the map. Some are claiming Trump is losing due to a poor ground game, others are saying he’s getting out the vote better than anticipated. Some say swing states are swinging left, again (how many swings in the same direction are required before a state no longer swings?), others that things are breaking for Trump. Some NeverTrumpers have remained steadfast in their detestation of the man, others have come out in favor. I predict……….a late night. I think it will be close. Can Trump overcome several million likely fraudulent votes? I guess we’ll see tomorrow, or sometime.
One other thing I’ll predict: this country is probably too far gone for a political savior, as opposed to a spiritual One, but I do think the process of deconstruction into corporatist-socialist-authoritarian dystopia will be made irreversible with a felonious Clinton win. I pray that does not come to pass, but at this point, I’m feeling somewhat detached from it all, as I have this entire election year. Not because I don’t care, but because I think all this political stuff is a distraction from the real ails facing this nation and all of Western Civilization, which are of a much more spiritual nature. Without correction of the spiritual cancer eating away at this country, it’s going to continue going to literal hell at an accelerating pace, and its final demise will only be delayed, not stopped and certainly not reversed, by a win for the “good” guys tonight.
Rorate posted some commentary from Fr. George Rutler, obviously persecuted by the Cardinal Archbishop of New York, Dolan, and I thought it was worth sharing, though most all readers have probably seen it already. I did want to post it, though, because one statement caught my eye and I thought it deserved some commentary. I always find great fruit and eloquence in what Fr. Rutler has to say, but there was one small part of his online sermonizing that I thought deserved a bit of comment. Perhaps now that the polls are mostly closed or closing, this little bit of criticism of an otherwise very fine piece can be forgiven (emphasis Rorate’s, my comments):
Exactly eight years ago I wrote a column titled “The One We Were Waiting For” in which I referred to a book by Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson, The Lord of the World. That dystopian novel has been cited by Pope Benedict XVI, and Pope Francis said he has read it several times. The protagonist, if one can apply that term to an Anti-Christ, imposed a new world religion with Man himself as god. His one foe was Christianity, which he thwarted in part by using “compromised Catholics” and compliant priests to persuade timid Catholics.
Since then, that program has been realized in our time, to an extent beyond the warnings of the most dire pessimists. Our federal government has intimidated religious orders and churches, challenging religious freedom. The institution of the family has been re-defined, and sexual identity has been Gnosticized to the point of mocking biology. Assisted suicide is spreading, abortions since 1973 have reached a total equal to the population of Italy, and sexually transmitted diseases are at a record high. Objective journalism has died, justice has been corrupted, racial bitterness ruins cities, entertainment is degraded, knowledge of the liberal arts spirals downwards, and authentically Catholic universities have all but vanished. A weak and confused foreign policy has encouraged aggressor nations and terrorism, while metastasized immigration is destroying remnant western cultures, and genocide is slaughtering Christian populations. The cynical promise of economic prosperity is mocked by the lowest rate of labor participation in forty years, an unprecedented number of people on food stamps and welfare assistance, and the largest disparity in wealth in over a century.
In his own grim days, Saint Augustine warned against nostalgia: “The past times that you think were good, are good because they are not yours here and now.” The present time, however, might try even his confidence. Sands blow over the ruins of churches he knew in North Africa where the Cross is virtually forbidden. By a blessed irony, a new church is opened every day in formerly Communist Russia, while churches in our own formerly Christian nation are being closed daily. [Is it irony, or the natural effect of a people who were yoked for a lifetime under the demon of communism/hard leftism, and have not only rebuked tyranny, but have found it’s only true and permanent cure: pious Christianity?] For those who bought into the seductions of politicians’ false hopes, there is the counsel of Walt Kelly’s character Pogo: “It’s always darkest before it goes pitch black.”
It is incorrect to say that the coming election poses a choice between two evils. For ethical and aesthetic reasons, there may be some bad in certain candidates, but badness consists in doing bad things. Evil is different: it is the deliberate destruction of truth, virtue and holiness. [And I agree that there is a sufficient distinction between a very bad, even amoral man, and a woman who has proven over a lifetime she is, by human standards, irredeemably evil. One might even call her deplorable.]
While one may pragmatically vote for a flawed candidate, one may not vote for anyone who advocates and enables unmitigatedly evil acts, and that includes abortion. “In the case of an intrinsically unjust law, such as a law permitting abortion or euthanasia, it is therefore never licit to obey it, or to ‘take part in a propaganda campaign in favor of such a law, or vote for it’” (Evangelium Vitae, 73).
At one party’s convention, the name of God was excluded from its platform and a woman who boasted of having aborted her child was applauded. It is a grave sin, requiring sacramental confession and penance, to become an accomplice in objective evil by voting for anyone who encourages it, for that imperils the nation and destroys the soul. [And here is where my bit of divergence comes in, and why I found it such a bitter pill to finally, in the end, have to vote for Trump simply out of resignation to stop an even greater evil. At the Republican National Convention, they did not trumpet abortion for all at Christian taxpayer’s expense, but they did have an open, avowed sodomite proclaim how wonderful his lifestyle was and receive a roaring ovation. This is one of the biggest sticking points some NeverTrumpers have had, and I can well understand their grave reticence to support a party, and a man, who openly advocated not just tolerating, not just permitting for prudential reasons, but celebrating, rejoicing in a sin that is as grave and, in some ways, even worse than mass child murder/genocide, because it involves a total dereliction of morals. It is not reasonable to gloss over this as if it never happened. No matter what the Republican party platform may say about the family and marriage, Peter Thiel’s speech and reception spoke far, far louder than any words on a website few, if any, ever read.]
It is also the duty of the clergy to make this clear and not to shrink, under the pretense of charity, from explaining the Church’s censures. Wolves in sheep’s clothing are dangerous, but worse are wolves in shepherd’s clothing. While the evils foreseen eight years ago were realized, worse would come if those affronts to human dignity were endorsed again. In the most adverse prospect, God forbid, there might not be another free election, and soon Catholics would arrive at shuttered churches and vacant altars. The illusion of indifference cannot long be perpetuated by lame jokes and synthetic laughter at banquets, for there is handwriting on the wall.
And I think that conclusion is true, that we as a Church and individual Christians do face unique threats from Hillary Clinton that make voting against her with the most viable candidate if not a moral requirement, at least very much the right thing to do for reasons of prudence. But let us never forget how very, very, very far from the Catholic ideal Donald Trump is, and the fact that not much will change, culturally, tomorrow should he win tonight.
A different way to say that might be, if Donald Trump, while clearly preferable in a damnable two party system, is our best political hope, we have arrived at a nadir in this country I never expected to see in my lifetime.
I find my solace in these ever darker days in knowing that this place is an exile, a place of trials and tribulations and not at all my true home. God will win out in the end, and we must trust in His protection and perfect knowledge of what is best for us. Should the worst happen tonight, the world is not over, the sun will come up tomorrow, and we will have to be called to the same practice of virtue, faith, and penance that we are always called to. In the end her Immaculate Heart will triumph and Jesus Christ will reign supreme over the entire world as the King He indeed is.
Opportet illum regnare! Opportet illum regnare! Pax Christi in Regno Christi! Resurrexit sicut dixit!
In this strangest of election years, that actually makes sense. I think one thing is certain: the left is convinced they are a hair’s breadth from irrevocably changing this nation along lines they find amenable to their diabolical purposes. All the amazing torrent of revelations that have come out in the past several weeks, including 6 figure payoffs to important bureaucrats to keep Hillary out of court, if not prison, and the open admission of massive electoral fraud, show both the lengths to which the Left is prepared to go in this election, and their firm belief that any and all means are acceptable when they are this close to their final goal – a permanent demonrat majority, at least at the national level.
Regarding yesterday’s post – I really don’t want or intend to hash out those extremely emotional arguments that tend to surface whenever whether or not to support Trump runs up against those squarely in the Never Trump camp. I have never been wholly in that camp, but neither have I been wholly convinced I would vote for Trump. Over time, I’ve drifted away from the former and towards the latter, however. I don’t think emotionally charged and little-supported arguments claiming either that one is morally obligated to vote for Trump, on pain of sin, or, conversely, that voting for Trump is betraying the conservative movement (whatever that means, anymore), are going to sway me or anyone else.
In reality, I think this country is finished no matter what, and that this election is far more kabuki theater than reality. As such, who I vote for probably makes little difference. At this point, I’d put Trump’s chances of winning at no better than one in five, and probably more like one in ten. That doesn’t mean I won’t vote, but I do so with near total resignation. No matter who wins, I think the long slide into oblivion will continue with quickening pace. I’d be very happy to be proven wrong, of course.
I’m not sure I like the word “teaching.” Teachings are changeable, a bit amorphous. Doctrines are better, Dogmas are the best. Dogmas cannot change. They are fixed. The Church’s belief regarding marriage most certainly rises to the level of a Dogma.
That quibble aside, we’ve had 1500 odd priests in the US and Britain sign a pledge to uphold Church Dogma on marriage and urge Francis to do the same, we’ve had 42 leading prelates and theologians privately dissect Amoris Laetitia and implore Francis to return to the perennial Dogma, we’ve had cries of the heart from The Remnant and many other organizations and individuals, and now this: an attempt by even more leading Churchmen, theologians, apologists, clergy, and faithful to declare their fealty to this unchangeable Doctrine, and imploring Francis to stop undermining the constant belief and practice of the Faith.
Some 80 leading lights in the Church today signed onto this petition at its launch. 2200 other souls have done so in the past few days. I have done so. Perhaps you will, too. An overview of the effort via Rorate:
80 Catholic personalities reaffirm their loyalty to the Magisterium of the Church on the family and Catholic morals
A Declaration of Fidelity to the Church’s Unchangeable Teaching on Marriage and to Her Uninterrupted Discipline was disclosed today by a group of 78 Catholic personalities, including cardinals, bishops, priests, eminent scholars, leaders of pro-family and pro-life organizations and influential figures of civil society.
The statement was disclosed by the association Supplica Filiale [Filial Appeal], the same organization that collected, between the two Synods on the family, nearly 900,000 signatures of Catholic faithful (including 211 prelates) in support of a petition asking Pope Francis a word of clarification to dissipate the confusion disseminated in the Church on key issues of natural and Christian morality since the consistory of February 2014.
Noting that the confusion has only grown in the faithful after the two Synods on the family and the subsequent publication of the Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia (with its more or less official adjacent interpretations), the signatories of the Declaration of Fidelity feel the urgent moral duty to reaffirm the immemorial teaching of the Catholic magisterium on marriage and family and the pastoral discipline practiced for centuries with regard to these basic institutions of a Christian civilization. This grave duty, according to the signatories, becomes even more urgent in view of the growing attack that secularist forces are unleashing against marriage and the family; an attack that does not seem to find any more the accustomed barrier in Catholic doctrine and practice, at least in the way they are now generally presented to public opinion.
Solidly supported by a crystalline and indisputable teaching, confirmed by the Church in recent years, the Declaration is concatenated around 27 statements upholding those truths explicitly or implicitly denied or rendered ambiguous in the present ecclesial language. According to the signatories, what is at stake are unchangeable doctrines and practices concerning, for example, faith in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, the respect due to this Sacrament, the impossibility of receiving Communion in a state of mortal sin, the conditions of true repentance that enable to receive sacramental absolution, the observance of the Sixth Commandment of the Law of God, the most serious obligation not to give public scandal and not lead the people of God to sin or to relativize good and evil; the objective limits of consciousness when taking personal decisions, etc.
The Declaration of Fidelity is already available in English and Italian and it will soon be available also in French, German, Spanish and Portuguese. Whoever wants to adhere to it can do so by signing at the address http://www.filialappeal.org/
When you go to the link, click on the “XXXX signatures worldwide” to add your own name. There, you can also read either a summary of the declaration, or the lengthy text itself.
Thus we now know with certainty of at least five public and who knows how many private intervention attempts that have been made to change the direction of this most radical and destructive pontificate and affirm the Sacred Deposit of Faith. That these efforts have all been directed at the pope himself is, to put it mildly, unprecedented in the history of the Church.
The Church is being “fundamentally transformed” just as the US was.
PS – I finally get into Rorate! Wish I had known Adfero was going to be there, I should have liked to have met him:
I’m gonna make it after all, dun dun dun duuun da!!
Actually, Rorate has linked to my stuff a few times, for which I am appreciative. The Rorate post seems to express the view that the parish is small in size but crowded. Perhaps by New York standards. I haven’t been in many traditional parishes substantially larger (though primarly NO parishes that offer the TLM often are). They did note the crowds, which is always the case especially on Sunday.
My Sunday pal Hugh Sheridan wasn’t to my left as he was for almost every Sunday for 5 years or so straight. RIP.
I think we need a bigger altar with a massive reredo with many niches for Saints statues and/or paintings. What do you think?
So says Leon H. Wolf in a piece at RedState, which, it must be said, tries to tie what I agree is a general trend towards failure by the institutionalized pro-life movement into an anti-Trump screed. I’ve read few sites that have been more reliably Never Trump, so keep that in mind.
I’ll cut and paste a bit of the article below, but while I think the author has a major point, I think he also errs substantially in 1) trying to parlay the “Republicans have always abused you” argument into “You’re a sucker if you vote for Trump” and 2) his general bashing of the pro-life movement for being steadfast Republican homers. For instance, was the same author just as exercised against pro-life orgs support for Mitt Romney, who had just as inconsistent record on abortion as Trump? If not, why not? Secondly, where else were pro-lifers supposed to go over the past 40 years, even as the Repubniks did, admittedly, repeatedly screw them over?
Ergo, I think this piece is a lot more about hating on Trump than really having something to say regarding the pro-life movement. YMMV.
Having said that, if you want to bash the in$$titutionalized pro-life movement for being ineffective and probably more concerned with keeping fundraising going than really ending abortion, you’ll get little argument from me. As for the rest, see what you think:
Personally, I have reached the point that I am fed up with these organizations. They have been, by and large, total failures in holding politicians accountable. When is the last time you can recall that a pro-life group claimed the scalp of any of the dozens if not hundreds of Republicans who have betrayed the pro-life cause over the years? It has not happened and it does not happen. [Well, is that the point of being a pro-life group, to claim Republican scalps? They’ve claimed a number of democrats, which is not unimportant. I agree most pro-life groups far too slavishly tote the mainstream Republican line, but what mainstream conservative commentators have ever called for a mass pro-life turning against Republican politicians who have somehow betrayed the cause? That is, until the Republican nominee somehow threatened the interests of these same mainstream commentators. I follow pro-life events quite closely, and I can’t remember more than a handful of such calls, all at the state or local level, never national.Why now?]
………These orgs are all carrot, no stick. They are happy to go out and encourage people to elect more Republicans, elect more Republicans, vote Republican for President in particular. Meanwhile, 7 of the 9 judges who decided Roe v. Wade were appointed by Republicans. Roe v. Wade would not have survived throughout all these years without Justices O’Connor, Kennedy, and Souter – all nominated by Republicans and confirmed with the unanimous consent of Senate Republicans. At no point has anyone ever paid a political price for this. So pro-life orgs set their sights on a series of incremental legislative changes to the abortion regime at the state level, which have systematically been thrown out by judges who were appointed and confirmed by Republicans – and again, no one has paid a political price for any of this. You could hardly ask for a more useful set of stooges for the RNC. [Again, who has been advocating for this? I think it’s a good idea, and if this is to be a start of a movement to get the pro-life movement to hold Republicans far more accountable for their lack of support for pro-life matters, I’m all for it, but as an argument simply to not support Trump, because now’s the time to start punishing R’s for lack of pro-life commitment? I don’t get it. Why not start with some of the most egregious House and Senate members, and go from there? How about we try to get a turncoat like Lindsay Graham driven from office, rather than start at the highest office? Or was this all just about self-justification? Which, if so, fine, but say so, don’t try to cloak it in some supposed larger-than-self virtue]
………I don’t know what it is about these groups that makes them totally unable to state the obvious: that pro-lifers are being played for suckers by the GOP, which has no intention of ever allowing Roe v. Wade to be overturned. [I thought Trump was an insurrection against the establishment GOP and largely despised by people like the author? So how does supporting him make people suckers for the GOPe?] After all, if it were, how would they scare the evangelicals into voting for the Donald Trumps of the future? [Well, I do wonder if there still isn’t some massive play going on, where, just as conservative were lured to vote for the non-conservative Romney in 2012 (after which many said never again), they are somehow being lured to vote for the non-conservative Trump in 2016. That all depends, I suppose, on how much sincerity one think Trump has.] The professional pro-life orgs are too scared to say this, and to admit that everything they have done for the last 40 years to this point has been an abject failure, because doing so might cause their donor money to dry up. So they continue to play the willing sucker again and again and at no point has it been more evident than their embrace of Trump this year. [I think this guy is getting a bit carried away in fervor to make his point. I don’t think the pro-life movement has been an abject, meaning total, failure over the past 40 years. Successes have been small, and too rare, but they have occurred. What awesome, unique cultural forces has the pro-life movement faced, that, say, someone supporting tighter immigration controls hasn’t faced, like, virtually all Americans defining their lives around the use of contraception? Have those had an effect?]
………If you believe that Trump has actual pro-life principles or that he will honor any sort of pledge to only appoint pro-life justices, then you have to be one of the most monumental suckers who has ever lived…… [Again, this is really inconsistent. Somehow he is tarring Trump the outsider as being part of the GOPe that has so failed pro-lifers. But Trump could actually be perceived as the very reaction this guy seeks, though not in the way he seeks it, agreeing with his preferences. That is to say, many pro-lifers, agreeing that the GOPe has used and abused them for decades, are now willing to take a flyer on the extremely dubious Trump, who is at least better than the same old same old that has betrayed them over and over. Again, did this guy advocate the pro-lifers finally punish the GOPe who gave us the pro-abort Romney in 2012? If not, then it’s not serious, it’s more NeverTrumpism]
………..Will there ever come a point – and I do mean, literally ever, where the professional pro-life orgs throw up their hands and say, “You know what? We are sick of being played for fools by the Republican Party. They must be actually opposed until they change their ways.” And if that day is ever supposed to come, why not now? If the Trump Farce isn’t enough to make them say “no mas,” then what will be?
The more I read this piece, the more unnerved I became. At the end, I no longer took it seriously as cri d’couer to the pro-life movement, but just another NeverTrumper seeking to justify his refusal to vote for Trump, and using some pretty ugly psychology on pro-lifers to try to sway them away from Trump, basically ending with calling pro-lifers stupid inbred mouth-breathing flyover dolts who don’t know what’s good for them when we tell them!
Which kind of smug superiority explains at least half of Trump’s support among conservatives in a nutshell. They are sick of being betrayed, they are sick of being lied to, they feel they have nothing to lose at this point, and so, why not give a total outsider, even one like Trump, a shot? At least he kneecaps cultural marxism on an almost daily basis, and seems to have a near Reaganesque quality to deflect all the media’s attempts to destroy him. Historically, how would the pro-life movement been better off if it had abandoned Republicans for…..what? What alternative was there? Even the examples he cites in his piece for successful “punishments” of Republican politicians who fell afoul of this special interest in the conservative base or that were only individual House members, never the presidential candidate, let alone an abandonment of an entire party! I think the author may have tipped his hand as to what he plans to do should Trump win……..
Telling these folks what stupid idiots they are for supporting Trump smells a lot more like sour grapes and deep fear of diminishing influence than it does anything else.
Look, I never have liked Trump. But I have no alternative but to vote for him at this point, because he is the best of a damnably weak field (at least in my state). I see no point in attacking him. He’s the nominee, he’s not going to give us an out by dropping out of the race (it was never going to happen), and it looks like he’s going to be quite competitive. I cannot understand, then, what purpose attacking him or those who support him serves, at this point, at least outside individual self-interest.
Which is a shame, because I think the original point of the piece, that the institutional pro-life movement, especially at the national level, has sold out, is dead on.
What do you think?
h/t reader good ‘ol MFG, who sends so many thought-provoking pieces
PS – At this point, I find any “pro-lifer” who isn’t also completely, totally anti-contraception to be unworthy of the name.
My my, has the diabolical Nazi collaborator George Soros been busy lately. Two different reports below, both from the two most reputable pro-life news agencies in the English-speaking world.
First, Soros used a $650,000 donation to influence the US bishops through the mediation of Francis’ right-hand-man Cardinal Rodriguez Maradiaga. Soros believes that donation has more than paid off, and is helping to shape the 2016 US election, leaked documents show:
Leaked emails through WikiLeaks reveal that billionaire globalist George Soros – one of Hilary Clinton’s top donors – paid $650,000 to influence Pope Francis’ September 2015 visit to the USA with a view to “shift[ing] national paradigms and priorities in the run-up to the 2016 presidential campaign.” The funds were allocated in April 2015 and the report on their effectiveness suggests that successful achievements included, “Buy-in of individual bishops to more publicly voice support of economic and racial justice messages in order to begin to create a critical mass of bishops who are aligned with the Pope.” [We on the right are armed with pea shooters, while the left has tanks, B-52s, chemical weapons, and nuclear bombs – rhetorically speaking]
The monies were granted to two US entities that have been engaged in a long-term project, according to the report, of shifting “the priorities of the US Catholic church.” Grantees were PICO, a faith-based community organizing group, and Faith in Public Life (FPL), a progressive group working in media to promote left-leaning ‘social justice’ causes. Soros has funded left-wing causes the world over and was just found to have been funding an effort to eliminate pro-life laws around the globe. [He is perhaps the most evil man in the world today]
Board Minutes from the May 2015 meeting of Soros’ Open Society Foundation in New York reveal that in the planning stages of the papal visit initiative, the group planned to work through one of the Pope’s key advisors, Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga, naming him specifically in the report. In order to seize on the opportunity provided by the Pope’s visit to the US, says the report, “we will support PICO’s organizing activities to engage the Pope on economic and racial justice issues, including using the influence of Cardinal Rodriguez, the Pope’s senior advisor, and sending a delegation to visit the Vatican in the spring or summer to allow him to hear directly from low-income Catholics in America.”
In 2013 Cardinal Rodriguez endorsed PICO’s work in a video during a visit from PICO representatives to the cardinal’s diocese. “I want to endorse all the efforts they are doing to promote communities of faith,” he said, “… Please, keep helping PICO.” [“All the efforts…..”…..including those aligned at demanding government funding of abortion and contraception, eh?]
……..The grant specifically targeted the ‘pro-family’ agenda, redirecting it from defending marriage to being concerned with income equality. “FPL’s media, framing, and public opinion activities, including conducting a poll to demonstrate that Catholic voters are responsive to the Pope’s focus on income inequality, and earning media coverage that drives the message that being ‘pro-family’ requires addressing growing inequality,” says the May report. [The primary source of “growing inequality” stems directly from left-wing policies and the kleptocratic rule of the global left-leaning elite – but never let facts stand in the way of a good narrative]
In terms of the Soros goal of shifting the priorities of the Catholic Church away from moral absolutes, two US bishops stand out as champions of the move. San Diego Bishop Robert McElroy has repeatedly stressed changing the Church’s priorities and has had the backing of Pope Francis’ ‘favored son,’ Chicago Archbishop Blase Cupich. McElroy created a furor at the U.S. Bishops Conference meeting last November over his attempt to change a document instructing Catholics on how to vote.
McElroy made a pointed argument that the document was out of step with Pope Francis’ priorities — specifically, by putting too much emphasis on abortion and euthanasia, and not enough on poverty and the environment. Cupich later praised McElroy’s intervention as a “real high moment” for the conference and supported the move to put degradation of the environment and global poverty on par with abortion and euthanasia.
Concluding their report reflecting on the success of the grant to influence the papal visit, the Soros group was very pleased with the results. Looking to the future, they are excited that the long-term goal of shifting the priorities of the Catholic Bishops in the United States “is now underway.” [How much other funding not yet found in Soros e-mails may indicate further payments, some perhaps made in a much more direct manner, to influence the opinions of bishops and others in the US Church, though, something tells me many of these bishops don’t need a whole lot of conversion on the matter]
A leaked document recently revealed that George Soros’ Open Society Policy Center (OSPC), wanted to give $1.5 million to Planned Parenthood for damage control after videos exposed that the abortion giant was trafficking aborted baby parts in the name of research. More leaked documents confirm that the center not only requested, but also received the money.
With the $1.5 million, OSPC, one of the U.S. branches of Soros’ Open Society Foundations (OSF), funded Planned Parenthood Action Fund’s “Fight Back Campaign” as an “urgent response in defense of women’s health” – in other words, as a response to the Center for Medical Progress’ videos released last summer.
The documents came from thousands of hacked Soros files published online Aug. 13 by a group called “DCLeaks.” And while The Free Beaconand other conservative outlets covered OSPC’s $1.5 million request, they couldn’t confirm “whether the funds were ever actually disbursed.”
But there is proof that Soros’ network did provide cover-up money for Planned Parenthood.
You can read the link for that proof.
I know Soros only cares about money and power, unlimited, Nazi-like power, but do those in the Church who want to see her reduced to some pathetic worldly NGO ever stop and think what that will really mean? A very small church, more like a social club than anything else, a poor church, a church with almost no political influence……….do they care? Is that what they want? Are they so blinded by their true religion – left wing ideology – that whatever happens outside of that is completely immaterial?
And don’t they know they must fail? Not only in the supernatural sense of Christ’s promise to His Church, but even in the natural sense? There will always people who will crave and seek out the Truth, and the Church will remain the place where it can be found, no matter how well hidden or buried some may try to make it. Ultimately, the church of man must fail, as all human things fail. Eventually, if the Church be the Body of Christ, and it indisputably is, she will come back to her true nature (provided we aren’t headed to the Parousia), and all this worldly orientation will be repudiated and even hated in some future, reconstituted Church. These men, to the extent they are remembered at all, will be reviled and pitied for the wounds they have tried to inflict on Christ and His Church. Do they ever stop to consider that, or are they simply too good of foot soldiers for the modernist left to bother with that? Are they too enthralled with their new religion to care? Are they just plain evil?
That’s the title of the very long article I was sent by reader MFG earlier this week, expostulating an extremely long pro-life defense of refusing to vote for Trump. I’ll only excerpt a little bit of the article, both because it’s too long to effectively condense to a reasonable-length post, and because I’ve already said much of what the author claims.
I’ll just add this – for the first time in my adult life, I am considering not voting, at least at the presidential level, this November. I am having a hard time not viewing voting in the presidential election this year as pointless. There is simply no morally acceptable candidate to choose. I certainly don’t want Hillary to win, and view her as the absolute worst possible option, but I simply cannot accept Trump’s deplorable personal morality – of which he remains shamefully proud and defiant – and his contradictory claims regarding abortion and other moral issues. The Libertarian candidate is also a pro-abort, which is simply an ender for me. I guess I’m down to writing in somebody. I’d say Darrell Royal, but he’s dead, God rest his soul. Or, I simply won’t vote at all.
Having said that, I think if the party tries to steal the nomination from Trump at the convention next week, that will only insure Hillary’s election. Trump won the primary by a substantial margin. Like it or not, Trump is the candidate, and attempting to “correct” the expressed will of the people – and I’m aware of all the problems and even contradictions in that statement – is a formula for suicide. Trump may or may not receive majority support and win the election, but what support he does have is very often extremely fervent and these people would be completely livid if the party stole, for lack of a better word, the nomination from him.
For those who don’t want to read further, it is hard to find a more succinct or accurate distillation of the development of my thought than that offered by Ben Sasse’s spokesman after the Senator met with Trump this week: “Mr. Sasse continues to believe that our country is in a bad place and, with these two candidates, this election remains a dumpster fire. Nothing has changed.” I heartily agree.
There are no conditions at this point under which I could possibly vote for either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. [That’s pretty much my point of view, at present. It could change, but I doubt it.]
…….
So, no, I won’t be voting for Hillary. Trump, then? No, not him either.
I have heard every argument defending voting for him over the past six months. I remain as convinced as I ever have been that there are no grounds on which it is permissible or morally licit for a conservative Christian to lend their support to Trump by voting for him.
In fact, I think it is obvious that no one should vote for the Contemporary Falstaff. However sophisticated the rationalizations for Trump become, they do not overcome the single, basic fact that he has done nothing in his personal life nor his professional career to demonstrate that he is fit for the highest office in the land. I take it as a given that nominating an unfit person to such an office would be a grave danger to American security and interests.
So there is no world where I will think that the political calculus and rationalizations add up to making voting for Trump permissible, save the world where Jesus appears in the flesh and tells me it is. And that is not this world, despite the earnestness with which many Trump supporters have assured me it is.
Now, having included that quote, I am not certain I could go so far as to say that I there are no grounds under which it is morally licit for a Christian to vote for Trump. Hillary is so deplorable, so criminally minded, and so evil in intent and action I can understand those who would support Trump simply to keep Hillary from being elected. I’m not in that place, but I can understand it. I also can understand – though I think it quite wrong – the mentality that the political elites in this country are irredeemably corrupt and self-interested and that Trump represents the best shot at shocking the current system and hopefully reforming it. There is also Trump’s seeming ability to repudiate cultural marxism that is attractive. I can understand all of these as rationale’s for voting for him, though they don’t personally move me to be able to support him, for a variety of reasons.
I also basically disbelieve Trump’s occasional (and often self-contradicted) claims to opposing abortion or being pro-life, among other moral issues. But I find declaring support for him to be immoral to go a bit too far, unless that statement hinges on his personal morality, in which case I’d be in general agreement. Regarding policy, however, since he’s been all over the map in his statements, my first question would be: which one?
Personally, I’m really not certain what I’m going to do. I increasingly feel that these elections are pointless, that this republic has passed the point of saving by political action. The very fact that Hillary and Trump are our two major candidates is a damning indictment of this nation. Even twenty five years ago, the scandals attached to these two people would have made their election as president impossible, but Americans seemingly no longer care about things like faith, morality, or even criminality. In fact, most people seem to expect it of “high” personages.
I’m sort of wandering. The only way I could possibly vote for Trump is out of sheer spite/fear/disgust for Hillary. At this point, however, I will probably just write in Michael Rodriguez or something like that – not that he would appreciate it! I just cannot be convinced that Trump is not a pro-abort, pro-sodomy, bad policy immoral dude. I feel his rhetoric about a border wall/immigration control is empty. I feel his campaign is just a massive vanity project, an ego trip on an epic scale.
Please don’t take my (or anyone else’s) criticism of Trump as an attack on you. As I’ve said, I do understand why many support him, though I cannot. If he is elected, I’d love to be proven wrong. We shall see. It seems the e-mail/influence peddling scandal may have hurt Hillary more than many thought – her support has seriously eroded and many polls now show the race tied or Trump in the lead.
However, I’m afraid the Simpson’s writers were right, if a bit premature:
Maybe I should run a poll to see how many readers are supporting Trump.
My commentary here is not, then, exactly news. And, frankly, I don’t have much to say about Voris’ “revelation” (I say revelation in quotes, because he had already made clear he had numerous sins in his past of a sexual and likely perverse nature), but I do have some things to say about how this revelation was treated by some of Voris’ critics in the media.
I saw, to my disgust if not surprise, that a number of “mainstream” (if by mainstream you mean left-leaning to out and out leftist) Catholic commentators expressing glee at Voris’ past shame. These commentators, almost to a man, inextricably linked Voris’ very strong stand against the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah that he has taken since his reversion and over the course of his apostolate to self hatred, an inability to “live with himself” as he “really is.”
Does anyone not see the incredibly nasty trap that is planted here? It’s the same trap we see opponents of Christianity make all the time, pretending that because Christians are not perfectly sinless, they are perfect hypocrites when they comment on social ills and sins sweeping through the culture.
But the trap is particularly invidious when it comes to certain cultural causes of the left, like so-called homosexuality. What the commentators are saying, is that Voris, in refusing to allow himself to sink into his past sins, by having true contrition for them and seeking God’s absolution and relying on the Grace that flows from it to avoid them in future, he is really in denial and all his efforts to encourage others to follow the path he himself has taken is just an exercise in self-hatred. Thus true conversion is a lie and one can only be an “honest” and “forthright” Christian through the embrace of the sins the Left commands embracing. Convenient, that.
I was not surprised to see such commentary from pagans in the sexular pagan culture. But to hear it, to see it from a number of self-described Catholics is simply horrifying.
These people apparently have absolutely no trust or belief in sanctifying Grace. Apparently, in their mindset, once someone adopts a sin, they literally become that sin, and can never escape from it, in perfect alignment with pro-sodomite propaganda and the kind of “catechesis” that has flowed from lost and often sexually perverse priests and religious within the Church herself (awesome piece, BTW, read it all). This is the lie of “born that way” writ large, which a) has never even come close to being proven (in fact, most of the evidence lies in the other direction), and b) completely rejects the idea of conversion through Grace and true amendment of life.
Revelations of sin should always be painful for any Catholic to see. Movements that celebrate and try to elevate sin to virtue should always be something we find deplorable and oppose with all our strength. But some would apparently rather see those movements succeed, and good men brought very low indeed in suffering and shame, because their true “god” is their political/social ideology. In a tragedy beyond measure, such people have had near total power in the Church for decades now. The results are plain to see.
Of course, I’m not really surprised at the vituperative hatred revealed in the reaction of some to Voris’ April 21 Vortex. It is part and parcel with their ideology, which cares none for the good of souls but solely for the triumph of the sexular pagan ideology’s grab for total power.
As for me, I’ve been there, though not to the same degree, thank God. There but for the Grace of God go I, that much I know. I had a mental parting of the ways with the crew at CMTV a year or so ago and frankly don’t keep up with what they do very much (as this post reveals, coming two months after the fact), but I will always be thankful to them all for their work and the good they have done, which is substantial.
I guess I might close with one final question, though: did CMTV ever produce any evidence of the plot by the Archdiocese of New York to reveal Voris past, as he claimed? Because that’s a very serious claim……..
Pray, and contact the Dallas City Council, especially if you live in the city limits, urging them to vote against this massive expansion of persecution of Christians. A move to get the council to vote to ban “gay conversion therapy” would have ominous implications even for preaching the Doctrine of the Faith, and could lead to a chilling of Catholic expression and apostolates in the Diocese. For one thing, it is quite possible Courage and other ministries oriented towards serving/converting those with same-sex attraction (like this one) could be banned, or at least face expensive lawfare in the courts.
Dallas LGBT advocates want the city to become the first in the state — and only the fourth in the nation — to bar mental health professionals from attempting to change the sexual orientation or gender identity of people under 18.
Rafael McDonnell, communications and advocacy manager for Resource Center, Dallas’ LGBT community center, told the Observer he’s scheduled to discuss a proposal to ban so-called reparative therapy for minors with a subcommittee of the city’s LGBT Task Force in the near future.
McDonnell said outlawing the widely discredited practice [nice assertion of opinion in a news piece – who judges it “discredited?” Why, the sodomite lobby, of course! The Texas Tribune is a leftist rag funded by Soros-affiliated groups, so go figure] would be consistent with Dallas’ comprehensive resolution in support of LGBT equality, which was approved by the City Council in 2014. [Let’s look at this a bit. This resolution now touted as being so “comprehensive” was sold at the time as being very limited in scope and posing no threat to religious practice or even activities like ministering to/counseling to those with same sex attraction disorders. And now of a sudden we see the resolution for what it was always intended to be: a way to provide state-sanctioned insulation for those with perverse inclinations from criticism. Even more, it is a way to use the force of the state to punish opponents of sodomy. Unfortunately, no matter how much they think they “succeed,” hell remains.]
All of these “equal rights” ordinances and resolutions are just ticking time bombs planted by the left for use at a later date. Sometime that later date is 10 years later, sometimes it is 3 months. But they always get used. Absolutely NO ONE favoring the resolution declared, when it was passed in 2014, that this would be a great tool to suppress religious objections to the sins of same sex sodomy, and yet here we are. This is how it always works with such things.
Jeremy Scwab is a man who, I believe, suffered from same-sex attraction in the past and who has been living a more God-centric and morally ordered life for some time. He runs a ministry specifically aimed to help walk people out of the same-sex lifestyle. His concerns on this latest effort to crush Christian opposition to same-sex sodomy below:
For the last two years I have been fighting against a particular assault on religious freedom and defending my ministry apostolate Joel 2:25 International (http://www.Joel225.org) in courtrooms and state legislatures in California, Illinois, and New Jersey. Anti-catholic activists have maligned me in the news media and online constantly as a result, but I have been blessed to see hundreds of men, women, youth, and families find healing and restoration through our work and that has made it all worth it.
I know I have asked for your prayers before when I had to testify in court and when I pushed for some protection against this attack here in Texas. Now, the activists have found another route to attack us, the Dallas City Council…..
……If these plans succeed, a large part of our ministry work will be illegal here in Dallas and in fact teaching the Catholic faith to youth will be technically illegal. This law forbids anyone from saying anything about homosexuality other than that it is a “healthy and natural variation of human sexuality” – which of course is in direct contrast to the catechism which states infallibly [A catechism is not an infallible expression of the Magisterium. But that the Church infallibly defines same-sex acts as gravely sinful is certainly a dogmatic expression of the Church’s Ordinary Magisterium] that it is an intrinsic disorder. As a convert, I am grateful that the Church continues to stand strong on the Truth and even when I was lost in darkness, the Church’s teaching was a beacon of light that guided me back to reality and eventually to healing and wholeness. [And thus we can see what evil is wrought by those who seek to undermine or even overthrow that Doctrine]
Please join me in praying that the Dallas City Council will vote AGAINST this ordinance. If you know anyone who could influence them, please ask them as well.
I sold my condo in Dallas and moved to Carrollton a few months ago – in anticipation of this. After seeing the outrageous treatment of religious freedom in the New Jersey courts, I knew I had to get out of Dallas county. For now, Joel 2:25’s Teen ministries will survive this, but there are many other ministries that are threatened – including the Confirmation classes at many Dallas parishes where our Joel 2:25 Young Adults have been invited to share their personal testimonies and any mention of St. John Paul II’s Theology of the Body within a Catholic high school would be illegal here in Dallas as it is now in Illinois, New Jersey, and California.
Obviously, we know this law is unconstitutional, but as we have seen recently, the majority of the Supreme Court and Federal Court judges have no regard at all for the constitution and religious freedom.I have worked to overturn the California law, but the courts refused to hear it…..
Based on the above, it is obviously far better to prevent this measure from being passed than to try to deal with the mess afterwards. I’m waiting breathlessly for a very strong statement of opposition to this effort by Bishop Farrell any second now.
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