Archbishop Chaput: "Systematic Discrimination Against Church Now Seems Inevitable"

SPISSKE, PODHRADIE, Slovakia, August 25, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - MUST READ Excerpts from Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput's address to the 15th symposium for the Canon Law Association of Slovakia on Tuesday:

Today's secularizers have learned from the past. They are more adroit in their bigotry; more elegant in their public relations; more intelligent in their work to exclude the Church and individual believers from influencing the moral life of society. Over the next several decades, Christianity will become a faith that can speak in the public square less and less freely. A society where faith is prevented from vigorous public expression is a society that has fashioned the state into an idol. And when the state becomes an idol, men and women become the sacrificial offering.

We face an aggressively secular political vision and a consumerist economic model that result - in practice, if not in explicit intent -- in a new kind of state-encouraged atheism.

To put it another way: The Enlightenment-derived worldview that gave rise to the great murder ideologies of the last century remains very much alive. Its language is softer, its intentions seem kinder, and its face is friendlier. But its underlying impulse hasn't changed -- i.e., the dream of building a society apart from God; a world where men and women might live wholly sufficient unto themselves, satisfying their needs and desires through their own ingenuity.

This vision presumes a frankly "post-Christian" world ruled by rationality, technology and good social engineering. Religion has a place in this worldview, but only as an individual lifestyle accessory. People are free to worship and believe whatever they want, so long as they keep their beliefs to themselves and do not presume to intrude their religious idiosyncrasies on the workings of government, the economy, or culture.

Now, at first hearing, this might sound like a reasonable way to organize a modern society that includes a wide range of ethnic, religious and cultural traditions, different philosophies of life and approaches to living.

… how does the rhetoric of enlightened, secular tolerance square with the actual experience of faithful Catholics in Europe and North America in recent years?

In the United States, a nation that is still 80 percent Christian with a high degree of religious practice, government agencies now increasingly seek to dictate how Church ministries should operate, and to force them into practices that would destroy their Catholic identity. Efforts have been made to discourage or criminalize the expression of certain Catholic beliefs as "hate speech." Our courts and legislatures now routinely take actions that undermine marriage and family life, and seek to scrub our public life of Christian symbolism and signs of influence.

In Europe, we see similar trends, although marked by a more open contempt for Christianity. Church leaders have been reviled in the media and even in the courts for simply expressing Catholic teaching.

The West is now steadily moving in the direction of that new "inhuman humanism." And if the Church is to respond faithfully, we need to draw upon the lessons that your Churches learned under totalitarianism.

A Catholicism of resistance must be based on trust in Christ's words: "The truth will make you free."

Living within the truth means living according to Jesus Christ and God's Word in Sacred Scripture. It means proclaiming the truth of the Christian Gospel, not only by our words but by our example. It means living every day and every moment from the unshakeable conviction that God lives, and that his love is the motive force of human history and the engine of every authentic human life. It means believing that the truths of the Creed are worth suffering and dying for.

Living within the truth also means telling the truth and calling things by their right names. And that means exposing the lies by which some men try to force others to live.

Our societies in the West are Christian by birth, and their survival depends on the endurance of Christian values. Our core principles and political institutions are based, in large measure, on the morality of the Gospel and the Christian vision of man and government. We are talking here not only about Christian theology or religious ideas. We are talking about the moorings of our societies -- representative government and the separation of powers; freedom of religion and conscience; and most importantly, the dignity of the human person.

…we cannot dispense with our history out of some superficial concern over offending our non-Christian neighbors. Notwithstanding the chatter of the "new atheists," there is no risk that Christianity will ever be forced upon people anywhere in the West. The only "confessional states" in the world today are those ruled by Islamist or atheist dictatorships -- regimes that have rejected the Christian West's belief in individual rights and the balance of powers.

I would argue that the defense of Western ideals is the only protection that we and our neighbors have against a descent into new forms of repression -- whether it might be at the hands of extremist Islam or secularist technocrats.

But indifference to our Christian past contributes to indifference about defending our values and institutions in the present. And this brings me to the second big lie by which we live today -- the lie that there is no unchanging truth.

Relativism is now the civil religion and public philosophy of the West. Again, the arguments made for this viewpoint can seem persuasive. Given the pluralism of the modern world, it might seem to make sense that society should want to affirm that no one individual or group has a monopoly on truth; that what one person considers to be good and desirable another may not; and that all cultures and religions should be respected as equally valid.

In practice, however, we see that without a belief in fixed moral principles and transcendent truths, our political institutions and language become instruments in the service of a new barbarism.

In the name of tolerance we come to tolerate the cruelest intolerance; respect for other cultures comes to dictate disparagement of our own; the teaching of "live and let live" justifies the strong living at the expense of the weak.

This diagnosis helps us understand one of the foundational injustices in the West today -- the crime of abortion.

I realize that the abortion license is a matter of current law in almost every nation in the West. In some cases, this license reflects the will of the majority and is enforced through legal and democratic means. And I'm aware that many people, even in the Church, find it strange that we Catholics in America still make the sanctity of unborn life so central to our public witness.

Let me tell you why I believe abortion is the crucial issue of our age. First, because abortion, too, is about living within the truth. The right to life is the foundation of every other human right. If that right is not inviolate, then no right can be guaranteed.

Or to put it more bluntly: Homicide is homicide, no matter how small the victim.

Here's another truth that many persons in the Church have not yet fully reckoned: The defense of newborn and preborn life has been a central element of Catholic identity since the Apostolic Age.

I'll say that again: From the earliest days of the Church, to be Catholic has meant refusing in any way to participate in the crime of abortion -- either by seeking an abortion, performing one, or making this crime possible through actions or inactions in the political or judicial realm. More than that, being Catholic has meant crying out against all that offends the sanctity and dignity of life as it has been revealed by Jesus Christ.

My point in mentioning abortion is this: Its widespread acceptance in the West shows us that without a grounding in God or a higher truth, our democratic institutions can very easily become weapons against our own human dignity.

Our most cherished values cannot be defended by reason alone, or simply for their own sake. They have no self-sustaining or "internal" justification.

There is no inherently logical or utilitarian reason why society should respect the rights of the human person. There is even less reason for recognizing the rights of those whose lives impose burdens on others, as is the case with the child in the womb, the terminally ill, or the physically or mentally disabled.

If human rights do not come from God, then they devolve to the arbitrary conventions of men and women. The state exists to defend the rights of man and to promote his flourishing. The state can never be the source of those rights. When the state arrogates to itself that power, even a democracy can become totalitarian.

What is legalized abortion but a form of intimate violence that clothes itself in democracy? The will to power of the strong is given the force of law to kill the weak.

That is where we are heading in the West today.

I suggested earlier that the Church's religious liberty is under assault today in ways not seen since the Nazi and Communist eras. I believe we are now in the position to better understand why.

Writing in the 1960s, Richard Weaver, an American scholar and social philosopher, said: "I am absolutely convinced that relativism must eventually lead to a regime of force."

He was right. There is a kind of "inner logic" that leads relativism to repression.

This explains the paradox of how Western societies can preach tolerance and diversity while aggressively undermining and penalizing Catholic life. The dogma of tolerance cannot tolerate the Church's belief that some ideas and behaviors should not be tolerated because they dehumanize us.
The dogma that all truths are relative cannot allow the thought that some truths might not be.

The Catholic beliefs that most deeply irritate the orthodoxies of the West are those concerning abortion, sexuality and the marriage of man and woman. This is no accident. These Christian beliefs express the truth about human fertility, meaning and destiny.

These truths are subversive in a world that would have us believe that God is not necessary and that human life has no inherent nature or purpose. Thus the Church must be punished because, despite all the sins and weaknesses of her people, she is still the bride of Jesus Christ; still a source of beauty, meaning and hope that refuses to die -- and still the most compelling and dangerous heretic of the world's new order.

The full 12-page talk can be read http://www.archden.org/index.cfm/ID/4396.

Archbishop Chaput Urges Christian Renewal in Response to Growing Persecution in US
By Patrick Craine

DENVER, Colorado, September 20, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Faced with growing persecution from an increasingly secular culture, Catholics must work for a true Christian renewal of America by embracing and living the teachings of the Catholic Church, said Archbishop Charles Chaput in a Friday column for First Things.

In the piece, entitled 'Catholics and the Next America', Archbishop Chaput reemphasizes his belief that Catholics, indeed all Christians, are poised to face growing persecution in the coming years.

America's public discourse, while traditionally shaped by the country's deep Protestant roots, has been supplanted by a secular ideology that began to take root in the late 19th and early 20th century, he says. According to the Archbishop, the growth of secularism was able to be ignored for a long time "because America's social consensus supported the country's unofficial Christian assumptions, traditions and religion-friendly habits of thought and behavior."

"But law-even a constitutional guarantee-is only as strong as the popular belief that sustains it," he says. "Seventy years of soft atheism trickling down in a steady catechesis from our universities, social-science 'helping professions,' and entertainment and news media, have eroded it."

He observes that Catholics saw the election of President John F. Kennedy as a major symbol of their long-won acceptance in America after the "harsh Protestant discrimination" against them in the 18th and 19th centuries. But he notes that by the time of this supposed acceptance, "secularizers had already crushed [mainline American Protestantism] in the war for the cultural high ground."

"In effect, after so many decades of struggle, Catholics arrived on America's center stage just as management of the theater had changed hands," he says.

"In the coming decades Catholics will likely find it harder, not easier, to influence the course of American culture, or even to live their faith authentically," he says. "And the big difference between the 'next America' and the old one will be that plenty of other committed religious believers may find themselves in the same unpleasant jam as their Catholic cousins."

At the same time, the Archbishop emphasizes that Catholics are not lacking in responsibility for the current attacks against faith, life, and family in America. Catholics "can only blame outside factors for our present realities up to a point," he says. "We have too often made our country what it is through our appetite for success, our self-delusion, our eagerness to fit in, our vanity, our compromises, our self-absorption and our tepid faith."

"In the name of tolerance and pluralism, we have forgotten why and how we began as nation; and we have undermined our ability to ground our arguments in anything higher than our own sectarian opinions," he added.

But Archbishop Chaput also notes that "the future is not predestined," insisting that "we create it with our choices."

"The most important choice we can make is both terribly simple and terribly hard: to actually live what the Church teaches, to win the hearts of others by our witness, and to renew the soul of our country with the courage of our own Christian faith and integrity," he concluded. "There is no more revolutionary act."


See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:

Archbishop Chaput: "Systematic Discrimination Against Church Now Seems Inevitable"
Archbishop Chaput: "Systematic Discrimination Against Church Now Seems Inevitable"

Ohso, these pieces you keep bringing us are vitally important.

Thank you.

I have posted elswhere that the Pope is being branded as the Anti-Christ, largely by the very same bunch of lunatic leftie feminists and their fellow travellers that we know so well. Yet it still doesn't get through to some MRAs that the Church of Rome is likely to be the last bastion against Evil forces and deserves some acknowledgement rather than 'protestant' hatred.

Now the Pope has been branded 'an Enemy of the State' by the same trenchant illiterates.

Good.

If that isn't enough to convince MRAs that the Pope is on our side, even if he wears a frock, I don't know what will.

Monday 20 September 2010

‘Pope Benedict is an enemy of the state’

‘Pope Benedict is an enemy of the state’ | spiked


Saturday’s demo against the pope confirmed that he has been transformed into an Emmanuel Goldstein figure for so-called humanists to hate.

Article by Brendan O’Neill. Photos by Nathalie Rothschild.

There was a delicious irony at the heart of the anti-pope demo in central London on Saturday: the protesters had clearly got so carried away with smugly expressing their intellectual superiority over the faithful hordes - ‘RELIGION IS STUPID’, said one particularly popular placard - that they forgot to proofread their own intellectual outpourings.

The spelling was atrocious. ‘Abstinance [sic] makes the church grow fondlers’, said one huge banner, held aloft by gays dressed as cardinals. ‘Science flies you to the moon - relgion [sic] flies you into buildings’, said another.

A lone woman elicited cheers for waving a homemade placard that said ‘Fuck off back to the Spanish Inquisition in the fourteenth century’. Now, the f-word I don’t mind - but a Spanish Inquisition in the fourteenth century? If you’re going to bandy around the word ‘STUPID’ , then at least read a history book or two first, or get one of those bright kids from Are You Smarter Than A 10-Year-Old? to spellcheck your propaganda.

But we shouldn’t let the actual illiteracy of the demo blind us to the real problem with it: its moral illiteracy. Shrill, decadent, profoundly illiberal in sentiment, this protest confirmed what the pope has become for at-sea secularists: an Emmanuel Goldstein figure, who allows them to get their moralistic rocks off.

The phrase ‘motley crew’ could have been invented for this gathering of Protest the Pope activists. There was a generous smattering of ageing lesbian and gay activists, getting one last wear out of their radical-queer bishop and nuns outfits from the 1970s. There were refugees from the rump of the old left, mostly from the Extreme Social Inadequacy Tendency. And then there were the professional secularists and humanists, who took to the stage one by one to try to out-adjective each other in their expressions of fear and/or loathing for the pope.

What brought these disparate groups together was a fairly obvious need for something - anything - to get hot under the collar about. Now that homosexual lifestyles are publicly prized, the old queer rights lobby doesn’t have much to get angry about; so thank God for the pope’s visit, which allowed it to resurrect - for one night only! - its unique brand of political bitchiness. ‘The devil DOES wear Prada’, said one gay group’s placard, referring to Benedict’s red, possibly Prada shoes (and the fact that he’s the devil).

The poor old left, in terminal decline for the past 20 years, leapt upon the pope’s visit to talk about global institutional corruption plus brainwashing and stuff. And for the New Atheist crowd, the arrival of Benedict - a man who actually believes in God! - is cast-iron confirmation that irrational religious belief is spreading like hellfire.

This was less a coherent protest against a real problem, and more a madcap attempt to transform the pontiff into a political pin cushion, into which every group desperately seeking a sliver of purpose could then stick their particular pin. So some were protesting against paedophilia, others against AIDS; some were concerned about Holocaust denial, others about homophobia, and others still about the undermining of human rights. And apparently the pope, taking over from money, is the root of all of these problems and of evil in general, being a wicked, Prada-wearing, Bush-meeting devil and all.

Some even waved placards saying ‘STOP STONING’ and ‘Religion flies planes into buildings’, which, correct me if I’m wrong, are problems that are associated with the Islamic faith rather than the Catholic one. But who cares.

Got a grievance? Pin it on the pope.


The whole thing had a whiff of voodoo about it, as the protesters sought to make the pontiff into a doll they could beat up. The sense of desperately needing something to get into a flap about was brilliantly summed up by a placard that simply said: ‘GENERAL DISAPPROVAL.’ This wasn’t radicalism as we have known it; it was a feeling in search of an outlet, a collection of lost causes looking for one more day in the political sun.

A columnist for the New Statesman provided an unwitting insight into the feeling of unformed liberal fury that has opportunistically attached itself to the pope, when she argued: ‘It is hard to pinpoint exactly what offends most about Ratzinger’s visit. Is it his attempts to rehabilitate child rape within the church [eh?] or his intolerant stance on safe sex and abortion…? It is all of these things, and none.’ Whatever it is, this is ‘legitimate liberal indignation’, she confidently claimed. It’s indignation about something or other - does it matter what?

Yet just because this campaign springs from neediness rather than political clarity, that doesn’t make it endearing or entertaining. On the contrary, there is a sharp authoritarian edge. Things turned ugly outside Downing Street when Terry Sanderson of the National Secular Society branded the pope an ‘enemy of the state’, giving rise to the cacophonous chant: ‘GO HOME POPE, GO HOME POPE.’ It was like a scene from 1984.

I have been on many a radical demo that has challenged the branding of some group or individual as ‘enemies of the state’; but this is the first radical demo I’ve been on where the protesters themselves demanded the silencing and even expulsion from Britain of someone they decreed to be an ‘enemy of the state’. Even one-time ‘enemies of the state’ - the so-called queers and the old left - were using that criminalising phrase, that piece of political demonology, to chastise the pope. It was the world turned utterly upside down. Being ‘an enemy of the state’, an ‘enemy of women, an enemy of gay people’, there is nothing for the pope to do but ‘go away and leave us alone’, said Sanderson.

It was extraordinary stuff. Consider what is being said: that because the pope’s views run counter to the British state’s views, he has to leave the country. Because he does not support gay rights or women’s equality, he must go home. Partly this is a creepy echo of the old prejudice about Catholics not being sufficiently loyal to the state - but more fundamentally, it speaks to a serious warping of the liberal humanist outlook. If you had to distil the profound, historic tradition of liberal humanism into one principle, it would surely be that no one should be persecuted for having views that are the opposite of the state’s or of mainstream political thought. Yet here was a gathering of so-called humanists clamouring for the expulsion of the pope on the basis that he does not accept ‘British values’, as the QC Geoffrey Robertson described them on Saturday.

One author says the problem with Benedict is that he is ‘spitting in the wind’; he’s standing in the way of a ‘tremendous tsunami of modern tolerance [surging] forward to swamp the rotten structures of family, patriarchy, superstition and sexual prudery’. But doesn’t being Enlightened mean defending people’s right to ‘spit in the wind’? Isn’t tolerance about accepting people’s freedom of conscience to reject mainstream ideologies? These ‘humanists’ have clearly forgotten their John Stuart Mill, who argued against forbidding so-called ‘bad men’ to propagate ‘opinions which we regard as false and pernicious’, even if we believe that those opinions will ‘pervert society’.

Saturday’s demo exposed as utterly false the anti-pope lobby’s claim that its only objection to Benedict’s presence in Britain is that it has been organised as a state visit, and an expensive one to boot. No, they don’t want him here, not because of how much he costs, but because of what he believes. And that is genuinely shocking.

Beneath the radical garb, what the liberal fury over Benedict’s visit really represented was a demand that every individual - even the goddamn pope of Rome - should genuflect before the altar of ‘British values’ - that is, the state’s values, the liberal elite’s values - or else face the consequences. Demonisation, perhaps, or expulsion; certainly removal from polite society. No dissent from their creed can be tolerated.


Brendan O’Neill is editor of spiked. Visit his personal website here.

A new battler for Britain
The Pope used his visit to England and Scotland to teach some important lessons.

Defying dreary weather and drearier protests, the state visit of Benedict XVI to England and Scotland was, by all accounts, a smashing success. Although only about 5 million of 60 Britons are Catholic, the enthusiasm of the crowds bowled over a sceptical media.

London’s saucy tabloids ran interviews with star-struck teenagers under punning headlines like “Bene’s from Heaven”. One young woman gushed to the News of the World, "English Catholicism needs a bit of oomph and this is our chance to give it some welly. I have got a feeling that I've not had for a long time. He should come more often."

No doubt the Pope appreciated the devoted crowds, but he had come with a message, not an applause meter. British Prime Minister David Cameron picked that up. In his farewell remarks, he thanked the Pope for raising searching questions. “You have really challenged the whole country to sit up and think, and that can only be a good thing.”

Think about what?

Five themes impressed me about Benedict’s subtle and subdued addresses.

Remember 1066 and all that. Even in Britain it’s easy to forget how yoked we are to our past. Voldemort Dawkins and his disciples seemed unaware of how much they owed to generations of anti-popery campaigners. Different costumes, same script.

Benedict, on the other hand, has a knack for placing messages in an historical framework. In Westminster Hall, he said, “The angels looking down on us from the magnificent ceiling of this ancient Hall remind us of the long tradition from which British Parliamentary democracy has evolved. They remind us that God is constantly watching over us to guide and protect us. And they summon us to acknowledge the vital contribution that religious belief has made and can continue to make to the life of the nation.”

Britain, he reminded his hosts time and time again, is incomprehensible without its faith. Even its first history was penned by a Saxon monk, Bede the Venerable. “The Christian message has been an integral part of the language, thought and culture of the peoples of these islands for more than a thousand years. Your forefathers’ respect for truth and justice, for mercy and charity come to you from a faith that remains a mighty force for good in your kingdom, to the great benefit of Christians and non-Christians alike.”

In short, democratic values of freedom, equality and solidarity have Christian roots. The greatest triumph of British democracy in the 19th century, the abolition of the slave trade, was due to the work of reformers like William Wilberforce and David Livingstone, both staunch Christians.

And, taking a leaf from the tormented history of his own homeland, Benedict reminded listeners that atheist regimes, like the slavers, denied a common humanity to Jews and other subject peoples. “As we reflect on the sobering lessons of the atheist extremism of the twentieth century, let us never forget how the exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life leads ultimately to a truncated vision of man and of society and thus to a ‘reductive vision of the person and his destiny’.”

What lies ahead if secularism erases religion from civic life?

Reason and faith are compatible. Benedict could easily have side-stepped the enormous tensions of this trip. Nowadays beatifications are normally proclaimed by local bishops. But the life and work of Cardinal Newman offered him an opportunity to take the battle against aggressive secularism into enemy territory. Without ever mentioning He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, he pounded his contention that “There is no logical pathway from atheism to wickedness.”

A schoolboy knowledge of the 20th century shows how dumboundingly daft that is but Benedict put it more eloquently:

“Without the corrective supplied by religion, though, reason … can fall prey to distortions, as when it is manipulated by ideology, or applied in a partial way that fails to take full account of the dignity of the human person. Such misuse of reason, after all, was what gave rise to the slave trade in the first place and to many other social evils, not least the totalitarian ideologies of the twentieth century. This is why I would suggest that the world of reason and the world of faith – the world of secular rationality and the world of religious belief – need one another and should not be afraid to enter into a profound and ongoing dialogue, for the good of our civilization.”

Young people need challenging ideals. The last 40 years have thrown a soggy blanket of booze and sex over youthful idealism and generosity. One of the leaders in the Pope’s Unwelcome Committee, the Commissar of the British secularist commentariat, Polly Toynbee, exemplified this in a recent column when she wrote that repression of “sex lies at the poisoned heart of all that is wrong with just about every major faith”. What Jack and Jill need is more safe sex, in other words.

Benedict, on the other hand, offered young Britons the demanding challenge of creating a civilisation of love, rather than a civilisation of indulgence. “There are many temptations placed before you every day - drugs, money, sex, pornography, alcohol - which the world tells you will bring you happiness, yet these things are destructive and divisive. There is only one thing which lasts: the love of Jesus Christ personally for each one of you.”

The Pope has a vision of life as demanding commitment to dignity, friendship, wisdom and truth – like John Henry Newman – instead of the frantic pursuit of “the glittering but superficial existence frequently proposed by today’s society”. The eruption of petulant nastiness in the media before the visit made a shabby contrast with the Pope’s invitation to reach for the stars.

Religion has a place in the public square. Nowhere in the Western world is religion more on the back foot than in Britain. But as Prime Minister Cameron pointed out, Christianity is challenging: “For you have offered a message not just to the Catholic Church but to each and every one of us of every faith and none. A challenge to us all to follow our conscience to ask not what are my entitlements, but what are my responsibilities? To ask not what we can do for ourselves, but what we can do for others?”

Faith has a role in political life, Benedict insisted. Politics is not just a matter of administrative effectiveness or balancing interests, but of ethics. “Substantially politics came into being in order to guarantee justice, and with justice, freedom. Now justice is a moral value, a religious value, and hence faith, the proclamation of the Gospel, is linked to politics at the point of ‘justice’, and from here are born common interests.”

The 20th century has shown that that governments are constantly tempted to tyranny. It is faith that protects citizens from being swallowed up by Leviathan:

“Each generation, as it seeks to advance the common good, must ask anew: what are the requirements that governments may reasonably impose upon citizens, and how far do they extend? By appeal to what authority can moral dilemmas be resolved? These questions take us directly to the ethical foundations of civil discourse. If the moral principles underpinning the democratic process are themselves determined by nothing more solid than social consensus, then the fragility of the process becomes all too evident - herein lies the real challenge for democracy.”

The foundation for tolerance is respect, not relativism. The Pope’s critics accuse him of being deaf to dialogue but they were in no mood for dialogue themselves last weekend. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named told a rally of supporters that he was “a leering old fixer” and “an enemy of humanity, of children, of gay people, of women, of the poorest people on the planet, of truth, of science, of education”. Isn’t Britain’s Pope of atheism capable of civility or tolerance?

By contrast, Benedict pulled no punches but gave no offence. In Westminster Hall he reminded the great and good of British society that Thomas More had been martyred for his loyalty to Rome. In Lambeth Palace, the residence of the Anglican Primate, he made a veiled reference to the ordination of homosexuals and women and Newman’s conversion from the Anglican Church. In Westminster Abbey, he described himself as the successor of Peter. He met Muslim leaders and alluded to the lack of religious freedom in Muslim-majority countries. Everywhere he spoke with courtesy and respect and without insolence or irony. But everywhere he sought out common ground for promoting human dignity and religious freedom.

More with deeds than with words he gave a memorable lesson in tolerance. On the one hand, it is not forbearance, or ignoring points of difference. On the other it is not minimising differences as if they did not matter. Benedict showed that tolerance is possible without being a relativist. Is it because he is sure that reason will ultimately triumph that he has the courage to dialogue?

Read the speeches yourself. It is not for nothing that MercatorNet nominated Joseph Ratzinger as one of the great champions of human dignity.

Michael Cook is editor of MercatorNet.

Everywhere he spoke with courtesy and respect and without insolence or irony. But everywhere he sought out common ground for promoting human dignity and religious freedom.

More with deeds than with words he gave a memorable lesson in tolerance. On the one hand, it is not forbearance, or ignoring points of difference. On the other it is not minimising differences as if they did not matter.

A lesson for us all in our war against the same enemy.

We may focus on the direct effect on men and point, rightly, to feminism as the dominant force infront of us, but the fems are part of a far bigger and more diverse Army of Evil.

Santorum: 'Separation of Church and State' Meant to Protect Church from Gov't, Not Vice Versa
By Kathleen Gilbert

HOUSTON, Texas, September 13, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - "I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute" - these words of U.S. President John F. Kennedy helped bring about today's "privatization of faith," which allows politicians to rationalize away their abandonment of moral principles in the public square, according to former U.S. senator Rick Santorum.

In a speech last Thursday at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas Santorum contemplated the consequences of Kennedy's famous words, just before the fiftieth anniversary of the late president's address. His remarks were published in full by Catholic Online Monday.

The former U.S. senator pointed out the problems that arise from Kennedy's appeal to a "conscience" that is free off religious influences. The late president stated: "Whatever issue should come before me as President, if I should be elected, on birth control, divorce, censorship, gambling or any other subject I will make my decision ... in accordance with what my conscience tells me to be in the national interest and without regard to outside religious pressure or dictates."

"I too use my conscience as a guide, but you are not born with a competent conscience; it is formed and continues to be formed by something and reflects that formation," said Santorum. "If faith in objective and eternal truths is no longer going to inform your conscience what moral code will? And where does that code come from? And what is the basis of its authority? Doesn't the public have a right to know? Yet Kennedy's followers never tell us.”

Santorum also pointed out that according to current standards, consciences that are not rooted in faith "can be permitted to freely apply their ideas in making laws and deciding cases." But, he continued, "On the other hand, consciences rooted in a belief in God are free to apply their ideas to personal matters; but if your beliefs, in the words of my former senate colleague Chuck Schumer, are 'deeply held beliefs' that impact your public positions - they must be excluded."

Santorum took as an example the infamous speech of former New York Governor Mario Cuomo at the University of Notre Dame in 1984. Cuomo had justified his support of abortion laws despite his Catholic faith by declaring that, while privately opposed to the killing of the unborn, he would not impose his belief on others, who may believe differently. "This political hand washing made it easier for Catholics to be in public life, but it also made it harder for Catholics to be Catholic in public life," said Santorum.

"Cuomo's safe harbor is nothing more than a camouflage for the faint of heart - a cynical sanctuary for concealing true convictions from the public, and for rationalizing a reluctance to defend them. Kennedy, Cuomo and their modern day disciples on the secular left would resolve any conflict between religion and politics by relegating faith to the closet."

While Kennedy's famous speech was intended to assuage fears that the pope would influence the Catholic president's administration, Santorum said that, by twisting the original meaning of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, Kennedy's words "sealed off informed moral wisdom into a realm of non rational beliefs that have no legitimate role in political discourse."

"On that day, Kennedy chose not just to dispel fear, he chose to expel faith," he said.

The notion that religion should not influence government was introduced relatively late in American political history; the original intention behind the so-called "separation of church and state," he explained, was to protect religion from the government, not the other way around. "Kennedy's misuse of the phrase constructed a high barrier that ultimately would keep religious convictions out of politics in a place where our founders had intended just the opposite," he said.

But ultimately, he said, the freedom of religion and conscience - which Kennedy's promises end up threatening, rather than aiding - "is the trunk from which all other branches of freedom on our great tree of liberty get their life. Cut down the trunk and the tree of liberty will die and in its place will be only the barren earth of tyranny."

Therefore, said the former senator, Americans should fight against the forces that antagonize people of faith, in order to preserve the virtue that is fed by faith and leads to true liberty. He quoted political philosopher Edmund Burke, who explained that "Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites ... Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without."

"Virtue requires faith because faith is the primary teacher of morality. That is not to say that one cannot be virtuous without faith, but for society as a whole faith is the indispensable agent of virtue," said Santorum. "Faith requires freedom."

Cuomo had justified his support of abortion laws despite his Catholic faith by declaring that, while privately opposed to the killing of the unborn, he would not impose his belief on others, who may believe differently.

Murders and thieves believe differently from Catholics too. They do not believe in the ten commandments. But heck, we should not impose sanctions against murder and theft just because of what Catholics belive, should we? In fact, let's support any crime that Catholics might find objectionable. We are free people not subject to some ancient creed.

Quote from Percy

Murders and thieves believe differently from Catholics too. They do not believe in the ten commandments. But heck, we should not impose sanctions against murder and theft just because of what Catholics belive, should we? In fact, let's support any crime that Catholics might find objectionable. We are free people not subject to some ancient creed.

Indeed - the old creed of Malum In Se (a crime that is Inherently Evil and thus Always Rong - such as Cain Slaying Able) versus Malum Prohibitum (prohibited by statute - but not necessarily rong - such as prohibition of alcohol) has been turned pretty much on its head.

The only real crimes of in the PC world are Thought Crime, while killing for convenience is a sacrament of the Abomination administered in state subsidized Abortuaries.

Alan Grayson, Daniel Webster, and the submission of wives
Date: 9/29/2010 By Bryan Fischer

Rep. Alan Grayson, a miserable creature if there ever was one, created one of the most reprehensible and despicable political ads in recent memory by twisting the words of his opponent, Daniel Webster, and equating his view of women with the dark, dangerous, and demented religion of Islam.

Calling Mr. Webster “Taliban Dan,” he inserted a clip of Webster talking about marriage and saying “submit to me” no less than four times in a 30-second ad. He accused Webster of fostering the same kind of degrading oppression of women that is called for in Islam and practiced in Muslim-dominated backwater countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The truth, of course, is exactly the reverse of what Grayson implied, which perhaps will come as no surprise once people discover that Grayson is a Democrat, an ilk for whom lying, twisting and distorting the facts seems to be second nature.

Webster was giving counsel to husbands in the tape from which the clip was drawn, urging the men to find verses in the Bible to pray for their wives. He pointedly told them, “Don't pick the ones that say, 'She should submit to me.'"

Don’t pick that verse, he said. Rather, “Pick the ones that your supposed to do. So instead, you should ‘Love your wife even as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it.’”

Grayson’s conduct was so inexcusable that even lefty groups like the Annenberg Public Policy Center and the Orlando Sentinel issued full-throated condemnations of Grayson, who heretofore has been their pet.

The stunt has backfired big time, as Webster raised $70,000 yesterday (Tuesday) alone off Grayson’s ham-handed attempt to demonize his opponent.

As an aside, you cannot find a more stark contrast between Islam and Christianity than on their respective teaching about marriage. While Islam instructs husbands that they literally may beat their wives into submission, Christianity instructs husbands to imitate the example of Christ, who loved his bride (the church) so much that he laid down his life for her.

This is just another example of the profound, unbridgeable chasm between the value system of Islam and the value system of the West. They are and always will be irretrievably incompatible. Every advance of Islam in America will come at the expense of liberty and of rights for women.

Now there is probably no other concept that is more misunderstood, both inside and outside the church, than the Bible’s teaching on submission and headship.

The first myth is that in a Christian marriage only the wife submits to her husband. But the first statement the apostle makes is this: Both husbands and wives are to “submit...to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Ephesians 5:21).

So a Christian marriage is to be one of mutual submission, not the domination of the husband over the wife. There is a profound sense in which a Christian husband submits to his wife as much as she submits herself to him. Submission takes a different form for the man than it does for the woman, but it is submission nonetheless.

The Scriptures clearly instruct wives, “Submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord” (Ephesians 5:22). The word “submit” is comprised of two Greek words, one of which means “under” and the other of which means “to set” or “to arrange.” So a wife is instructed to arrange herself, put herself, set herself, under the leadership of her husband in the home.

What’s critical to understand here is that there is no verse in the Bible that instructs a husband to see to it that his wife submits to him. This is a matter between a wife and her Lord, not between a wife and her husband. It is not her husband who is asking her to submit, it is God. It is a matter of reverence for Christ rather than for her husband that prompts her to voluntarily arrange herself under her husband’s leadership.

It is a gift that she gives to her husband, not a right that he demands. She demonstrates her reverence for Christ by not challenging her husband’s leadership in their home but by supporting him and working with him to help him succeed in shaping and directing the life of their marriage and family.

How does a husband submit himself to his wife? As Webster reminds us, husbands are told to “love your wives, as Christ love the church and gave himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25). That is, he submits himself to his wife by refusing to use his headship simply as an excuse to get his own way, or as a cloak for his own selfishness. He submits himself to his wife by making a determination to use the authority God has given him in his home to give his wife and children what they need rather than to get what he wants.

Marriage is not and can never be a democracy. Somebody has to have the tie-breaking vote when the poll reveals a one-to-one tie. In a Christian marriage, the husband is the tie breaker. The way it is designed to work is that a wife willingly defers to her husband on those rare occasions when they cannot agree on a course of action, and the husband makes the decision that his conscience tells him is best, not for himself, but for her, their marriage, and their home.

If a husband believes before God that the best decision in a given situation is different than the one his wife prefers, he does not order her to follow him, he asks her. The decision is then up to her. He’s not forcing her to do anything. He leaves the issue squarely where it belongs, between her and her God.

If you have a problem with a Christian view of marriage, fine. Don’t become a Christian then. Nobody is going to make you, again unlike Islam where the choice is convert or die. But if you do decide to follow Christ, his instructions regarding marriage are clear.

The president said yesterday that “I am a Christian by choice” because “the precepts of Christ spoke to me.” The precepts of Christ, as given through his chosen apostle, are plain and unambiguous when it comes to roles in marriage. You sign up to follow Christ, you sign up for the whole package.

Getting back to the Websters, it’s worth asking how this whole leadership/submission thing works out in practice.

Here is Sandy Webster, Dan’s wife of many years: “Dan has been an amazing husband and father, and the finest man I have ever known.”

Here’s a wife who believes in the biblical view of roles in marriage, and seems quite happy to be married to a man who is dedicated to using his strength to protect her and provide for her, and to “nourish and cherish” her as the Bible says. What wife wouldn’t?

Christianity, like conservatism, works every time it’s tried. Alan Grayson is learning that lesson the hard way.

Russian Orthodox Patriarch Condemns Gay Propaganda in Spain’s Schools
By Hilary White

ROME, October 15, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill has condemned a move by the Spanish government to insert what he called homosexual “propaganda” into school textbooks.

Patriarch Kirill said the Orthodox Church “would never fail to call a sin a sin.”

“I consider it very important to take into account the second article of the Protocol 1 of the European convention on human rights that stipulates that ‘the state shall respect the right of parents to ensure such education and teaching in conformity with their own religions and philosophical convictions.’”

In statements on Wednesday, Kirill said that the push against religious freedom in Europe is an inversion of human rights.

“I am frightened by what is happening in certain countries, particularly in western Europe, where it is necessary to ban crosses in schools, and erase religion from public life in the name of human rights,” Patriarch Kirill said in a meeting with German President Christian Wulff.

“I am convinced that modern civilisation is making the same mistakes as the Soviet Union, where atheism was an official ideology.”

He added, “It doesn't make any difference in what name you do it. In the end the signal is the same: liquidising, removing the religious consciousness.”

In related news, the Serbian Orthodox Church has condemned violence against homosexuals, even while it maintains opposition to the staging of “gay pride” events this week. The church’s Holy Synod said in statement that violence is “unacceptable,” particularly if carried out “allegedly in the name of God or the Christian church.”

The opposition of the church is a key factor in the failure of homosexualist activists to gain approval for the demonstrations. The issue is being viewed by some in the European Union as a test for Serbia’s bid for EU membership.

another index of the distain to which the totalitarian new age set hold the community - why not the Catholic Church appeal to the Canadian Human Rights Commission hahha

they are sure to get a sympathetic hearing from the new age HRC resident feminit commissars and their mangina lickspittles ! don't believe me ! ask Ezral Levant

Defend the Family - Defending the Natural Family, Marriage and Family Values Alert

Frriends,

Following is an exchange you might find interesting. The writer is an 18 yr old from the South whom I am calling J.


Mr. Lively,

I'm sure you're much more aware than I about your critical reception in the media about your activism in the Christian and worldwide community. Also I've done a lot of research and seen documentaries on your activism in Uganda. I talked with the one person who I knew wouldn't lead me in the wrong direction, my mother, about your ideas and beliefs, and her reaction was somewhat unexpected. I've seen many organizations that call your organization a hate group, and even though I can see their point of view, I understand your beliefs as well... My mother though, said that she strongly disagrees with you.
She said your beliefs and activism are very non-Christian as a Christian is supposed to love one another regardless of race, beliefs, etc... And she thinks the though of homosexual recruitment is ridiculous.... Now I have never lived in uganda so I cannot speak for them when I say this, but in America, I've never seen nor heard of someone trying to recruit children into homosexuality. And on a documentary I saw (I cant remember if it was you or another pastor) a pastor stated that gay people are, "boys who were molested when they were young and are gay to molest other young boys." When I heard this statement I was utterly appalled.
I was molested as a child and it was a traumatizing event, but I have never thought of or actually acted to molest another child. If anything I would try my hardest to prevent that from ever happening again. I'm just looking for some closure. I cant imagine a man of god hating someone so much just because they are a homosexual, black, Ugandan, or American... I hope you understand my point and I extremely look forward to hearing back from you. Thank you so much for your time and cooperation.

Sincerely, J

***

Here is my response:

Dear J,

Thank you for your thoughtful and sincere comment. It is refreshing after so much hate mail. I'll address the questions in order.

I am a Bible believing pastor and I hate no one. Opposing sin is not hate, it is in fact love. To see someone hurting themselves and society through their misguided behavioral choices and to give them encouragement to keep sinning instead of constructive criticism leading to change of behavior --- that is hate.

To do unto others as one would have done to himself is not just about positive things like not cutting someone off in traffic (kindness), it is also about warning people about the dangers that you see and they don't, like stopping a blind man from stepping off a curb into a hole (mercy). Who is the hater in the second example? The one who says "stop" or the one who says nothing? If it is love to stop an innocent man from hurting himself, how much more loving is it then to speak up to warn a guilty man of his consequences?

For a Christian it is also a moral duty. Ezekiel 3:18

I'm sorry you got your information about me from my enemies. They are not honest about me or the homosexual issue. They will say or do anything to prevent the truth from interfering with their campaign to normalize homosexuality in our society and to gain power for themselves.

Everything I have said -- when taken in context -- is truthful, factual and well documented. The only reason you are not aware of the facts is the power of the "gay" propaganda machine to silence all opposing voices. Do you remember what they did to the beauty queen Carrie Prejean? Just for saying she didn't agree with "gay marriage." Google her name if you don't know what I'm talking about, and then ask yourself this: if they can do that to a beautiful, talented relatively innocent young woman just for giving her personal opinion on an issue about which a majority of Americans still agree with her, how much more are they willing and able to do against people like me who take difficult and controversial positions? You simply can't trust them to be fair or honest on this issue, and you can't trust the information available to you in the popular culture because it is all controlled to show only one side of the issues.

Think about it J. When was the last time you saw a pro-family leader on TV explaining the pro-family position on homosexuality in detail and with documentation? Probably never in your lifetime. It is not for lack of trying on our part or lack of intelligent things to say. Edited clips don't count because they can easily be manipulated to serve the editors ideology and not the speaker's -- as was done in my case.

Compare that to all of the "facts" and reasoning you have received from the "gay" perspective in news and entertainment media, movies, presentations in school, etc. This in itself is a form of recruitment, suggesting to impressionable youths that any fleeting same-sex thoughts that they may have is evidence that they are "gay."

We all know how easily people are manipulated by their emotions and by the behavior of other people around them. How do people become cigarette smokers? They see the advertising/propaganda, or they see their friends do it, they try the product, and decide they like it because it makes them feel good. They were "recruited." It's the same logic with sexual identity, except there are other factors such as childhood sexual trauma or gender identity confusion that make some kids more susceptible to the propaganda.

I never said that all people who are molested as children or teens become child molesters themselves. However, a large percentage of self-identified adult homosexals, both males and females but especially females, were molested as children or teens. It stands to reason that sexual trauma in youth would make one more susceptible to a variety of sexual problems in later life, not just homosexuality, but other forms of sexual deviance as well and problems with intimacy, authority, trust in normal marriage. Fortunately, people have the power to choose the path of healing instead of the path of giving in to dysfunction. I am happy that you appear to have chosen the path of healing.

My information is not just from the many scientific studies that are available, I have a sister and another relative who were molested as children. They both became homosexuals. My sister, now deceased, recovered from her lesbianism after becoming a Christian. My other relative when he became an adult molested another boy whose family I know. The man is still trapped in his sin. The boy (now a man) did not become a homosexual but has suffered years of very serious drug addiction. (He did not choose the path of healing.) I know the life stories of many other homosexuals including my close friend Sonny whose tragic circumstances I tell in the introduction of my last book Redeeming the Rainbow, which I have attached:
http://www.defendthefamily.com/_docs...es/6643130.pdf

The examples of the men I just cited reveal another type of recruitment that takes the form of sexual predation -- either by force in Sonny's case (he was raped by a homosexual man at the age of 7 in the restroom of the YMCA) or by seduction over time, such as happened to the little boy who is now a heroin addict. This is not a small problem, it is widespread, but hidden.

If you are truly interested in understanding the pro-family perspective on the variety of issues related to homosexuality my book should be very helpful for you. You will also see that my position is well reasoned and documented, and quite respectful of the people who struggle with homosexual dysfunction even though I speak harshly about their political movement and goals.

You happened to catch me home sick for the weekend or I probably wouldn't have had time to respond to you. I might not be able to carry on much of a conversation going forward but I will try.

I'd like to know one thing from you. What is your relationship with Jesus? If you want true healing from what happened to you, He is the only one who can provide it. God Loves The World

I don't know you J, but I hope you can see that I care about you in the way I have responded to you. I would act no differently to any homosexual or non-homosexual who approached me in the way you have done.

Blessings.

Pastor Scott

Finland Court Fines Pastor for Refusing to Work with Female Minister
By Hilary White

October 26, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Finnish Supreme Court has levied a €320 fine against a Christian pastor for his refusal to work with a female minister, calling it a case of “gender discrimination.”

Ari Norro is a minister of the Lutheran Evangelical Association of Finland and a member of the Lutheran Evangelical Association in Finland (LEAF), an association within the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland that does not accept the ordination of women.

In the spring of 2007, he was serving as guest pastor at a Sunday service at a church in Hyvinkää, southern Finland, one regularly served by Petra Pohjanraitio, a woman minister. Pohjanraitio had been scheduled to distribute communion; however, before the service, she was told by Norro that his apostolic beliefs prevented him from working with a woman pastor at the altar.

The Supreme Court decision follows two others from lower courts that ruled the church must abide by the same rules on “gender equality” as other workplaces.

“Actions determined by faith can’t lead to human rights breaches, such as gender-based discrimination,” the ruling stated.

St. Paul Cares About You (Family Research Council)

Yesterday the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor party strategically lashed out at the Catholic Church and all Christians in a post-card campaign which included a picture of a priest in a roman collar wearing a button that read "ignore the poor."

While the Minnesota Democrats are claiming that the postcard was geared specifically towards Dan Hall, a republican minister running for state senate, it appears that the group was also trying to send a message to Christians in Minnesota who are pro-life and pro-marriage.

This is not surprising given that the local leader of the Catholic community of St. Paul and Minneapolis, Archbishop John Nienstedt, has been a leader in opposing same-sex marriage and abortion.

But Minnesotans are angered, not motivated, by this latest smear campaign. Not only is the post-card campaign highly disrespectful of religious leaders, beliefs, and freedoms--it is totally inaccurate.

Research continues to find that when it comes down to who really cares for the poorest among us, it is Christians who sacrifice more of their time and money to provide for hurting people both in the U.S. as well as internationally.
It is Christians, not government or politicians, who provide this personal care and comfort to their neighbors.
For more information on how you can be hands on in helping the poor visit RealCompassion.org.