The American Genocide of the Preborn: Forty-Six Years of Endless Compromise and Indifference

Tens of thousands of Americans have made their way to Washington, District of Columbia, to particpate in the forty-six annual March for Life today, Friday January 18, 2019, the Feast of the Chair of Saint Peter in Rome and the Commemoration of Saint Prisca to mark the anniversary of the tragic decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States of America in the cases of Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, January 22, 1973.

Although I found the mood to be much too celebratory the last few times that I participated in the March for Life in the late-1990s and bemoan the fact that the event, which was always a bit too “ecumenical,” now has a very large “evangelical” Protestant “footprint” as the saying goes these days, I always marveled at the sacrifices made by so many thousands of people, sometimes number up to a quarter of a million (the mainslime media have never reported the numbers accurately), to travel overnight on buses from places as far away from the nation’s capital.

Lasr year's march featured the first live-streamed video presentation by an American president, who though well-meaning and has indeed taken some executive actions that many are convinced represent pro-life accomplishments despite their being riddled with “exceptions,” the truth remains that no one but no one, despite their good intentions, should be termed “pro-life” who believes that are certain supposedly “exceptional” circumstances in which babies may be vacuumed up, sliced and diced, and burned alive in their mother’s wombs. Good intentions do not redeem flawed premises.

For instance, Trump’s mention of the “Mexico City Policy” was very misleading for the following reasons that I outlined nearly two years ago now:

The George Walker Bush version of the "Mexico City" policy, as the "gag" order is called, was fraught with holes and exceptions as to make it an utter sham that convinces the average "pro-life" American that "something" is being done to save lives when the truth of the matter is that Bush's executive order that Trump has now restored permits employees of international "family planning" agencies in foreign countries to refer for abortions on their own time in any off-site location of their choosing. In other words, the "Mexico City" policy permits an employee of the International Planned Parenthood chapter in Nairobi, Kenya, for example to say, "Look, there are things I can't tell you now. Meet me at the Nairobi McDonald's after I get out of work. I can tell you more then." The employee is then free to speak frankly about surgical abortion, to recommend the killing of a child as the only "sensible" option, to recommend a specific baby-killer and a specific place for the baby to be killed.

Mrs. Judie Brown, the president and founder of the American Life League, offered the following commentary ten years ago after the United States Congress had passed a bill containing the language of the Mexico City Policy:

While many are celebrating the Congressional passage of a bill that contains the Mexico City Policy, there are those of us who are not so quick to throw a party.

The policy was contained in a piece of legislation that also provides an increase in funding for Planned Parenthood. But that's not really the worst of it.

The Mexico City Policy contains exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother ... standard fare for the pro-life politicos these days. The problem is, they fail to point out that the Mexico City Policy does not and cannot prohibit our tax dollars from paying for abortion; it can only prevent our tax dollars from paying for some abortions. Why, you may ask, did I use the word "some"?

Well, the Mexico City Policy will pay for surgical abortion in the cases of rape, incest, and life of the mother in addition to paying for chemical abortions caused by RU-486, the morning-after pill and the various birth control methods that can cause abortion.

Further, it is not clear what happens when an organization agrees to refrain from paying for abortion with U.S. tax dollars, but chooses to use those dollars to pay for other "services," thus freeing up other money to subsidize the killing.

In other words, the Mexico City Policy is fraught with problems that result in death.

So when some claim that America is no longer an "exporter of death," they are really not being totally honest with the public. America is still the number one exporter and subsidizer of preborn child killing, period. Of that there is no doubt. (AMERICA'S DEADLY EXPORT) 

This analysis was correct twelve ago, and it is correct today, and it is worth stressing that nothing but nothing in the restored and revised Mexico City Policy issued by President Trump two years ago forbids the use of the human pesticide, RU-486, which former President George Walker Bush refused to take off of the market, thereby retaining the United States Food and Drug Administration's decision, announced on September 28, 2000, the Feast of Saint Wenceslaus, to market the baby-killing potion during the midst of that year's presidential election.

Unfortunately, for the self-sacrificing Americans who will attend  the March for Life today, the truth of the Mexico City Policy will never pierce through their false beliefs that “something” is being done. It is not.

While some will contend that it is a “victory” that the “bad” that would be done by a “President” Hillary Rodham Clinton is enough of a reason to celebrate, the fact remains that a disserve is done to the cause of truth if we accept falsehoods as “progress.” A just social order must be founded on truth, and it is not in the service of truth to believe that a meaningless executive order that is nothing other than a legal sleight of hand is an instrument to save even one innocent human life from execution. American taxpayer dollars are still being used to fund baby-killing when it is alleged that a mother’s life is endangered and, of course, to fund the chemical execution of the preborn by means of abortifacient contraceptives.

Lip-Service From the Counterfeit Church of Conciliarism

Unfortunately, of course, false hope is being provided to those who make the heroic sacrifices to attend the March for Life at a time when a Pew Forum survey taken seven months ago indicates that Catholics are almost evenly divided about whether access to surgical baby-killing should continue to be protected under the cover of the civil law:

Religious affiliations play a large role in opinions on abortion, with the majority of atheists claiming abortion should be legal and people of various faiths leaning toward criminalizing abortion in America, according to Pew Research.

Pew Research Center published a 2017 poll Monday, showing that religious beliefs heavily affect how Americans regard abortion legality. Eight-seven percent of atheists and agnostics think abortion should be legal in all or most cases, however, 75 percent of Jehovah’s Witnesses and 70 percent of Mormons think abortion should be illegal.

Pew Research used data from a 2017 survey conducted June 8-18.

Despite the Catholic Church’s condemnation of abortion, Catholics are split right down the middle, with 48 percent maintaining that abortion should be legal and 47 percent claiming that it should be illegal. Sixty-three percent evangelical Christians said they believe abortion should be illegal.

Conversely, only 35 percent of mainline Protestants think abortion should be illegal. Almost 80 percent of Episcopalians also think that abortion should legal in almost all cases. (RELATED: Science Is Revolutionizing Arguments Against Abortion)

Religion’s influence on abortion is well noted, but advancements in science are also changing how abortion advocates and pro-lifers argue their cause. For while Roe v. Wade legalized abortion and determined that a newborn could survive only at roughly 28 weeks of pregnancy, scientific advancements have allowed doctors and nurses to birth healthy children at 22 weeks, causing some health professionals to debatewhether the medical community should change the threshold of viability. ( Catholics Are Almost Even Divided on Abortion)

Apostasy does have consequences, does it not?

Nearly half of Catholics in the United States of America believe that there should be unfettered access to surgical baby-killing under cover of the civil (the next original article on this site tears apart the false conclusions drawn from a recent Knights of Columbus/Marist College poll that is far more complex and nuanced than officials of the Knights of Columbus have indicated).

Think about that.

This is the result of several factors, including the ethos of Americanism, which is that of Calvinism and Judeo-Masonry that has convinced most Catholics in the United States of America to see the world through the lens of democratic egalitarianism and religious indifferentism rather than to view the world through the eyes of the true Faith.

Writing near the end of his Characters of the Inquisition, William Thomas Walsh noted the way that Catholic Americans had been shaped by the naturalist culture in which they enveloped as the election of 1940 between the socialist Wendell Wilkie, the nominee of the Republican Party, and the socialist Franklin Delano Roosevelt, approached, explaining that Catholics—including most of their bishops from the time of Archbishop John Carroll to that of Francis Cardinal Spellman, a span of 150 years—had not told their neighbors the truth about the true Faith:

Now, either the Catholic body will come into sharp conflict with those about them, or they will not.

Within a generation we have seen our Liberal politicians denounce the Soviet, cultivate friendly relations with it, and denounce it again – this time more coyly. As the world grows smaller in time, may not all the forms of Socialism be gathered together by skillful hands into a World Sate, such as many Masonic writers have advocated, and the League of Nations sought to achieve? It is not only conceivable,  but probable; for all forms of Socialism (even if some still call themselves Democracies) will be animated by a single obscure but powerful principle: the worship of the material, which is and always must be the negation of Christianity. Here, then, by a masterly anithesis, Pius XI has cast a strong light upon the shapes of things to come. It is all the more revealing when it shows us only the recurrence upon a larger stage of a deathless drama that happened long ago. Christ still lives in His Mystical Body, the Church, as truly as in the human body he took from Our Lady; and when the time comes for Him to be crucified again in His Church, depend upon it, Pilate and Herod that day will find a way to patch up their differences, some Caiaphas will cry, “Crucify Him! We have no king but Caesar!” and there will always be found some Judas to give the kiss of death.

Admittedly (perhaps my wish is father to this thought) we may by some miracle escape that fate, here in America. Perhaps despite their affiliations, Mr. Roosevelt or Mr. Wilkie, as political Catholic admirers of each will tell us, will be led in the right direction by a divine hand. Again, perhaps not. Only the future can reveal this. Meanwhile this much is certain: the United States, in a very few years, will be either a Catholic country (and therefore a free country) or a Socialist country, (and therefore a slave country). “He who is not with Me is against Me.” History demonstrates the unfailing truth of this dilemma.

Here on the last edge and in the twilight of the world, the stage is set for the reenactment of an ancient tragedy – or can it this time be a comedy? Here are all the actors who have appeared over and over again in that tragedy in Europe. Here we have most of the Freemasons of the world, the Jews, most of the gold and its masters; Parthians and Medes and Elamites – men gathered together from all nations under the sun, speaking one language, leading a common life; and among them heirs of all the isms and heresies that the Catholic Church has denounced throughout the centuries, and some millions of good bewildered folk who have ceased to believe much in anything, and do not know what they believe, or whether anything be worth believing; and, scattered among these millions with their roots in such movements of the past, some twenty-five millions of Catholics.

If they do not [oppose socialism and liberalism as two sides of the same Protestant and Judeo-Masonic coin], it will be the first time in history that the Mystical Body of Christ (and American Catholics, like all others, are “cells” of that Body) has not aroused violent and unreasoning antagonism. This has been so uniformly a characteristic of the life of Christ and the life of the Catholic Church, that when persons calling themselves Christian or Catholic do not meet with oppositions, and strong opposition, one may well begin to wonder whether they are profoundly Christian and truly Catholic. Perhaps then it is a reflection upon us American Catholics that we have inspired so little antagonism (comparatively) thus far. Perhaps we have not been telling our neighbors the truth, the strong truth, the hard saying they will not like: that the real test of our republican experiment here must ultimately be whether it accepts or opposes the Church of Christ; that it must become either a Catholic state, or a slave state. (William Thomas Walsh, Characters of the Inquisition, New York, P.J. Kenedy & Sons, 1940 pp. 188-189.)

William Thomas Walsh summarized in a few paragraphs the theme that I have tried to hammer home in hundreds upon hundreds of lengthy commentaries on this site—and in countless hours of lectures around the country and online.

Yes, the United States of America has become a slave state controlled by the same set of forces that the Inquisition sought to eliminate from within Holy Mother Church. This is because the United States of America was founded on false principles, including those of “religious liberty” and “religious indifferentism” that contributed to the rise of counterfeit church of conciliarism—and thus to the efforts on the part of its supposedly “pro-life” “bishops” to oppose surgical baby-killing under cover of the civil law. It is impossible to oppose the evil of willful murder using the very false premises that led to its receiving the sanction of the civil law.

This is more than amply demonstrated by the fact that a veritable parade of conciliar “bishops” who bother to show up at the rally on the National Mall prior to the March for Life have spoken repeatedly over the years about “respecting life” when they promote doctrines that are offensive to the Most Blessed Trinity and thus injurious to the eternal good of men as well as the temporal common good of their nations.

Now, of course, Jorge Mario Bergoglio included the protection of “creation” and opposition to “global warming” as part of the “consistent ethic of life” that was first enunciated by the lavender loving Joseph “Cardinal” Bernardin in an address he delivered at Fordham University, Borough of the Bronx, City of New York, New York, on December 6, 1983. As noted in a recent article on this site, Bergoglio is thus using the phrase “biodiversity” to connote a moral equivalence between the protection of innocent human life and the “environment.” This is his way of telling “pro-life” “bishops” in his false religious sect that they can no longer be seen as “anti-abortion” but as “pro-biodiversity.”

Morever, each of the conciliar “bishops” who have spoken at the March for Life over the past four and one-half decades have mandated mandate explicit classroom instruction in matters pertaining to the Sixth and Ninth Commandments in full violation of Pope Pius XI’s absolute prohibition of this as contained in Divini Illius Magistri, December 31, 1929. Each of the “bishops” who will speak today promote “natural family planning,” which is nothing other than a supposedly “Catholic” form of birth control to limit the size of families (for a review of this issue yet again, please see Forty-Three Years After Humanae Vitae, Always Trying To Find A Way andPlanting Seeds of Revolutionary Change, Jorge Puts On His "Catholic Hat"? Don't You Believe It and "Rabbits" to Jorge, God's Blessings to Pope Pius XII).  

With one or two exceptions, most notably “Bishop” Thomas Tobin, the conciliar “bishop” of Providence, Rhode Island, who has written strongly worded commentaries against pro-abortion Catholics in public life, most of the “bishops” who have spoken at the rally on the National Mall prior to the March for Life have been and remain guilty of being weak-kneed and tongue-tied when it comes to dealing with pro-abortion and pro-perversity Catholics in public life.

Additionally, all too many of these “bishops” have been active enablers of pro-abortion, pro-perversity Catholics in public life by means of the late Joseph “Cardinal” Bernardin’s aforementioned “consistent ethic of life,” a false moral teaching that conflates the absolute inviolability of innocent human life with the lives of criminals found guilty of heinous crimes after the administration of the due process of law and while denouncing all wars in se as opposed to “life principles” even though God Himself has sanctioned just wars in defense of His Holy Name, the rights of Holy Mother Church and the freedom of her children.

In this, of course, the statist-leaning, "seamless garment" "bishops" of the counterfeit church of concilairism in the United States of America have had a vital ally in the person of the Argentine Apostate, who is too busy trying to "save the planet" from "climate change" to say anything other than a few perfunctory words now and again about the "sanctity of life," although he rarely uses to the word "abortion." Such perfunctory words will be read today on the Capitol Mall in Washington, District of Columbia, by the president of the United States Conference of Conciliar "Bishops," Daniel "Cardinal" DiNardo., the conciliar "archbishop" of Galveston-Houston, Texas.

Alas, a series of articles written six years ago (Forty Years Of Emboldening, Appeasing And Enabling Killers--see also part two and part three) dealt with this sorry record of coddling pro-aborts.

The sorry but predictable outcome of the counterfeit church’s coddling of those who support baby-killing has been the emboldening of the statists in the false opposite of the naturalist “left,” the Democratic Party, into becoming completely hardened in their support for a whole panoply of moral evils. Careerists of the false opposite of the naturalist “right” who belong to the other major organized crime family of naturalism in the United States of America, the Republican Party, have learned full well that there is no “price” to pay from the conciliar “bishops” or from most of their supporters for either abandoning any verbal recognition of the horrors of the daily slaughter of the preborn and/or providing little crumbs now and again to show that “something is being done” when all that is being done is to provide a record of meaningless Congressional votes that comprise the phony “pro-life scorecard” put out by the National Not-So-Right-to-Life Committee (which takes no stand against contraception and supports the direct, intentional killing of the innocent preborn as a matter of principle, not as matter of making a concession in a piece of legislation that might not have any other chance of passing).

Mrs. Judie Brown, the president and founder of the American Life League, wrote in 2017 about the continued betrayal of the continued betrayal of the preborn by Congressional Republicans who make "exceptions" to the binding precepts of the Fifth Commandment's prohibition against the direct, intentional taking of an innocent human life as a matter of principle, not that of legislative expediency:

It is time to stop the silliness. It is time to get real. It is time to understand that because we are defending defenseless preborn children, we cannot ever agree to a compromise which condemns certain babies to death.

The pro-life movement, in large part, began compromising from the early days. When I was a neophyte and working under Mildred Fay Jefferson, MD at the National Right to Life Committee, I began hearing things that greatly concerned me. I was introduced to a red line that differentiated pro-life ethical principles from political realities—or so I was told by some.

At that time, and until his death, I was a huge fan of Father Paul Marx, OSB. He wrote many commentaries explaining the truth to his flock. In his very last one he wrote about the problems with certain birth control chemicals and devices having the potential to cause abortion. In an article entitled “Prophecies of Humanae Vitae,” he wrote:

Contraception's destruction of the integrity of the marital act—as unitive and procreative—has dire consequences for society and for our souls. Contraception, in other words, is a rejection of God's view of reality. It is a wedge driven into the most intimate sphere of communion known to man outside of the Holy Sacrament of the Mass. It is a degrading poison that withers life and love both in marriage and in society.

As we know, contraception can cause an abortion. In addition, the contraceptive mentality leads to abortion. This is why pro-life Americans must hold the line, never agreeing to support even one abortion whether in the realm of politics and legislation or in the public square witnessing to the sanctity of human life.

But here we are in 2017, and once again proposed legislation is out there that contains language that protects the act of aborting children in cases of rape and incest or “in the case where a woman suffers from a physical disorder, physical injury, or physical illness that would, as certified by a physician, place the woman in danger of death unless an abortion is performed, including a life-endangering physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself.”

The problem with such language is not easy to see these days, because for more than 16 years legislative proposals like the Hyde Amendment have included such exceptions. In the intervening years these words outlining which babies can be killed under the law have only become more engrained in the lexicon of “pro-life” politicos. But no matter how you say it, a baby will die if any exception is carried out in practice.

In other words, pragmatism or political expediency are code words for defining language that results in death for some babies.

So the question before us is really quite simple: Should we accept the pro-life status quo or should we sound the alarm over and over again until people begin to see the truth for what it is? The answer is simple: We can never settle for any abortion for any reason. And it is our job to help others see this truth.

Abortion kills a human being—a person just like you and me. No abortion is ever acceptable.

One of my early mentors, Professor Charles Rice, once wrote on the topic of exceptions and the humanity of the preborn child. He stated, “As a non-person the unborn child has no more constitutional rights than does a goldfish or a turnip.”

And when allegedly pro-life proposals move forward with language that permits the killing of the preborn in certain cases, aren’t we legally agreeing that the preborn child is not a human being in all cases—and in fact in some cases is no more valuable than a goldfish or a turnip?

I hope not, but the exception language says yes! To this we must say NO!

Let us make a renewed vow to focus attention on the humanity of the preborn baby from his biological beginning without ever agreeing to the killing of even one of them. Each is a person; each is an individual; each baby deserves to live!

We must give each baby a voice. We must protect each and every one. And we must end this ongoing betrayal of our preborn brothers and sisters. (New Congress Continues Old Ways to Betray Babies.)

As noted earlier, not even Donald John Trump is truly "pro-life," although he does not realize that he is not.

Why should he?

Most of his advisers do not understand that gravity of directly intending to kill an innocent human being, which is one of the four sins that cry out to Heaven for vengeance.

This is why it is good yet again to provide some historical perspective to explain what led up to the decisions of the Supreme Court in the cases of Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton on Monday, January 22, 1973, and what has happened in the forty-two years thereafter.

It Didn't All Start With Roe v. Wade

No, the move for decriminalized baby-killing by surgical means started in earnest in the early-1960s as a result of the "Thalidomide babies," that is, those babies born with birth defects as a result of their mothers having taken the drug Thalidomide to help them with their morning sickness during pregnancy. It was, as Dr. Doris Graber pointed out in a very matter-of-fact way in her Mass Media and American Politics text, in 1963 that the phenomenon of the "Thalidomide babies" produced calls for "therapeutic" surgical abortions to be made "legal."

The anti-family movement, which started with efforts on the part of Masonically-controlled state legislatures to liberalize existing divorce laws in the latter part of the Nineteenth Century, gained great impetus with Margaret Sanger's Birth Control League in 1919 and numerous organizations devoted to "eugenics" in the 1920s, some of which were successful in convincing state legislatures ton enact mandatory sterilization laws for criminals and the retarded (once again, thank you states' rights). That anti-family movement, which comes from the devil and is designed to lead souls to Hell for all eternity as social order is disrupted as a result of the breakup of the family, had been given its "wedge" issue as a result of the Thalidomide babies, giving its leaders a "cause" to try to open the legal floodgates to surgical abortion-on-demand to complement the chemical abortions being produced by the "pill" and other abortifacient contraceptives. Indeed, the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists issued a statement in 1965, shortly after the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States of Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), that declared in a most positivistic manner that drugs that stopped the life of a child after fertilization but before implantation in a mother's womb were to be called "contraceptives" instead of "abortifacients."

As I have noted in many other articles on this site, Roe v. Wade did not "start" the genocide of the preborn in this country that has taken over fifty million innocent human lives since 1965. The move for the decriminalization of surgical baby-killing began at the state level (so much for demigod of states' rights) as pro-abortion leaders such as Dr. Bernard Nathanson, a founder of the National Repeal of Abortion Laws (now called NARAL-Pro Choice), and Lawrence Lader and William Baird, among others used the existence of various "exceptions" in abortion legislation then on the books as the means of "liberalizing" "access" to baby-killing for all women in all circumstances. The move for decriminalized baby-killing under cover of law started at the state level, moving into the Federal court system only when pro-death advocates believed that it was propitious for them to challenge the laws of those states which prohibited or restricted "access" to baby-killing.

It is useful to review some of the history of decriminalizing surgical baby-killing under cover of civil law prior to Roe v. Wade. Those who contend that the "people" in the various states have the "right" to determine whether to permit or prohibit surgical baby-killing would have no problem with the pre-Roe legislation, nor would they be bothered by the fact that many states have "trigger laws" in effect to "protect" baby-killing in the event that Roe v. Wade is reversed at some point by a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States of America.

The State of Colorado was the first to "liberalize" its existing legislation, doing so in 1967:

The pre-Roe abortion statute was based upon § 230.3 of the Model Penal Code.  Under the statute, an abortion could be performed at any stage of pregnancy (defined as “the implantation of an embryo in the uterus”) when continuation of the pregnancy was likely to result in the death of the woman, “serious permanent impairment” of her physical or mental health, or the birth of a child with “grave and permanent physical deformity or mental retardation. An abortion could be performed within the first sixteen weeks of pregnancy (gestational age) when the pregnancy resulted from rape (statutory or forcible) or incest, and the local district attorney confirmed in writing that there was probable cause to believe that the alleged offense had occurred Pursuant to Roe v. Wade, the limitations on circumstances under which abortions could be performed and the requirement that all abortions be performed in hospitals were declared unconstitutional by the Colorado Supreme Court in People v. Norton.Enforcement of the statute was not enjoined.

The pre-Roe statute has not been repealed, and would be enforceable if Roe v. Wade were overruled.  The broad exceptions in the statute, however, in particular the exception for mental health, would allow almost all abortions to be performed. Colorado, Life Legal Defense Fund.These links no longer work. This site, Christ or Chaos, appears to be the current source for the information that used to appear at Life Legal Defense Fund.

The State of California, then headed by Governor Ronald Wilson Reagan, followed suit in 1967, passing the Therapeutic Abortion Act, has long been a haven for baby-killing:

The pre-Roe abortion statutes were based upon § 230.3 of the Model Penal Code. The California Penal Code prohibited abortions not performed in compliance with the “Therapeutic Abortion Act” of 1967, and made a woman’s participation in her own abortion a criminal offense (subject to the same exception).  The Therapeutic Abortion Act authorized the performance of an abortion on a pregnant woman if the procedure was performed by a licensed physician and surgeon in an accredited hospital, and was unanimously approved in advance by a medical staff committee.  An abortion could not be approved unless the committee found that there was a “substantial risk that continuance of the pregnancy would gravely impair the physical or mental health of the mother,” or that “[t]he pregnancy resulted from rape or incest.”  An abortion could not be performed on grounds of rape or incest unless there was probable cause to believe that the pregnancy resulted from rape or incest.  No abortion could be approved after the twentieth week of pregnancy for any reason.

In a pre-Roe decision, the California Supreme Court declared substantial provisions of the Therapeutic Abortion Act unconstitutional on state and federal due process grounds (vagueness).  Sections 274 and 275 of the Penal Code were repealed in 2000, the Therapeutic Abortion Act was repealed in 2002.  None of these statutes would be revived by a decision overruling Roe v. Wade. Abortions could be performed for any reason before viability, and for virtually any reason after viability.

Finally, regardless of Roe, any attempt to enact meaningful restrictions on abortion in California would be precluded by the California Supreme Court’s 1981 decision in Committee to Defend Reproductive Rights v Myers.  In Myers, the state supreme court struck down restrictions on public funding of abortion on state constitutional grounds (privacy).  In the course of its decision, the court stated that under the privacy guarantee of the state constitution,  “all women in this state–rich and poor alike–possess a fundamental constitutional right to choose whether or not to bear a child." California, Life Legal Defense Fund

The State of Oregon, whose Masonically-controlled state legislature once compelled the attendance of all children of school age in state-run schools, effectively prohibiting parochial and other privately-run schools from operating (a law that was struck down by the Supreme Court of the United States of America in the case of Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 1925), passed its own pro-death legislation in 1969:

The pre-Roe statutes were based on § 230.3 of the Model Penal Code.  The statutes allowed an abortion to be performed before the one hundred fiftieth day of pregnancy when (1) there was “substantial risk that continuance of the pregnancy [would] greatly impair the physical or mental health of the mother,” (2) “the child would be born with serious physical or mental defect,” or (3) the pregnancy resulted from felonious intercourse.  After the one hundred fiftieth day, abortion was permitted only if “the life of the pregnant woman [was] in imminent danger.”

Pursuant to Roe, most of these statutes were declared unconstitutional in an unreported decision of a three-judge federal court, and were later repealed.  The pre-Roe statutes would not be revived by a decision overruling Roe v. Wade.  Abortions could be performed for any reason at any stage of pregnancy. Oregon, Life Legal Defense Fund. 

The State of New York passed legislation in 1970, albeit by one vote in the State Senate (cast by a Catholic, State Senator Edward Speno of East Meadow, Long Island, New York), to permit baby-killing through the twenty-fourth week of pregnancy:

The pre-Roe statutes allowed abortion on demand through the twenty-fourth week of pregnancy.  After the twenty-fourth week, an abortion could be performed on a pregnant woman only if there was “a reasonable belief that such is necessary to preserve her life.  In a pre-Roe decision, the New York Court of Appeals rejected a challenge to the law brought by a guardian ad litem for unborn children  The legality of abortion would not be affected by the overruling of Roe v. Wade.  The pre-Roe statutes, which have not been repealed, allow abortion on demand through the twenty-fourth week of pregnancy.  After the twenty-fourth week, however, abortions could be performed only to preserve the woman’s life.

Regardless of Roe, any attempt to prohibit abortion (at least before viability) in New York probably would be barred by language in the New York Court of Appeals’ decision in Hope v. Perales, a challenge to the New York Prenatal Care Assistance Program.  In Hope, the court of appeals noted in passing that “it is undisputed by defendants that the fundamental right of reproductive choice, inherent in the due process liberty right guaranteed by our State Constitution, is at least as extensive as the Federal constitutional right [recognized in Roe v. Wade].” New York, Life Legal Defense Fund. 

The movement to decriminalize baby-killing in the United States of America, ladies and gentlemen, started in the states, and it would remain perfectly legal in most of those states if Roe v. Wade, decided forty-two ago this very day, January 22, 1973, was reversed today. Only one state, Arkansas, has legislation in place that would ban all surgical baby-killing with no exceptions whatsoever. Another seven states (Louisiana, Michigan, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Dakota, and Wisconsin) would prohibit surgical baby-killing with the so-called "life of the mother exception." Those eight states represent a total of ten percent of the population of the United States of America. Surgical baby-killing would remain legal, both as a result of existing state laws and/or provisions or the decisions of various state courts, in forty-two states and the District of Columbia, meaning that the American slaughter of the innocent preborn via surgical means would be fully accessible to ninety percent of the American population. And those who think that entire generations of children who have been raised in the culture of ready access to contraception and abortion are going to have an "epiphany" during adulthood about the errors of their past training are not thinking clearly about the state in which we find ourselves at present.

Emboldening, Appeasing, Enabling Killers Since January 22, 1973

Indifference is what has characterized the past forty-eight years since state legislatures began to "liberalize" existing statutes concerning abortion and the past thirty-seven years since the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States of America in the case of Roe v. Wade. Indifference.

There was even indifference on the actual day of Roe as two other events overshadowed the Supreme Court's decision: the death of former President Lyndon Baines Johnson and the announcement made by President Richard Milhous Nixon that a "peace accord" had been reached at the Paris Peace Talks between National Security Adviser Dr. Henry Alfred Kissinger and Le Duc Tho, the representative of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (Communist North Vietnam) to bring American involvement in Vietnam to a close while permitting North Vietnamese army regulars and Viet Cong guerillas (whose interests were represented Madame Nguyen Thi Binh) to remain in "enclaves" in the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam,). These two events overshadowed the decision in Roe, which would lead to a period in American history with a casualty figure eclipsing that of the American dead in the Vietnam War by slightly under a thousand times.

Indifference will mark this day, at least for the most past.

The "mainstream" media usually ignores or disparages the annual March for Life each year as thousands upon thousands of Americans gather in the nation's capital for an event that has become much too celebratory over the years. We have nothing to celebrate. We have much to mourn as the American slaughter of the preborn continues on a daily basis, both by means of surgical and chemical abortions. We have much to mourn when one considers how indifferent most people, including most Catholics are, in the face of the daily slaughter of the preborn.

Indifference to the Proximate Root Causes of Abortion: The Overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King

More than the indifference over the daily slaughter of the preborn, however, is the indifference that even those who call themselves pro-life have about the root causes of how we have come to such a state of affairs as that most people in a nation that professes itself to be "civilized"--and deems itself to be judge of whether other nations in the world are "worthy" of being considered as "civilized" as itself--can go about their business each day without giving a single thought (and I mean not a single, solitary thought) to the outrages being committed against God and man by means of the slicing and dicing of innocent preborn children under cover of law.

Most pro-life Americans are so busy finding "political" and "legal" and "constitutional" "strategies" that they are totally disinterested in even learning about how we have arrived at this point in history. Most people prefer to believe in partial-truths about "activist" judges and "loose" constitutional construction, reacting with outrage when they are told that the real proximate cause for each of our social problems, including abortion, is the overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King wrought by the Protestant Revolt in the Sixteenth Century and the rise of anthropocentricity (a man-centered view of the world) associated with Judeo-Masonry and with the variety of naturalistic "philosophies" and ideologies that were spawned from the time of the so-called Age of the Enlightenment to our present day.

By Reason Alone One Can Come to Understand That Abortion is Forbidden by the Natural Law

It is therefore necessary on this forty-third anniversary of the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States of America in the cases of Roe v. Wadeand Doe v. Bolton to examine some rather basic facts about the taking of innocent human life in the womb, which is one of the four sins that cry out to Heaven for vengeance and can never be justified as belong to the province of the "people" to "permit" no matter what form of government under which they live.

One can come to a principled opposition to the taking of innocent human life on the basis of reason alone unaided by the light of the Divine Revelation that has been entrusted by Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ exclusively to the Catholic Church He Himself founded upon the Rock of Peter, the Pope. Some of the pagan physicians and philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome were able to conclude that the taking of innocent human life in the womb was prohibited by the precepts of the Natural Law. Hippocrates did so in his Hippocratic Oath, which was changed many medical colleges and universities in the 1970s and thereafter:

I will apply dietetic measures for the benefit of the sick according to my ability and judgment; I will keep them from harm and injustice.

I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody who asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect. Similarly I will not give to a woman an abortive remedy. In purity and holiness I will guard my life and my art.

The Roman playwright Juvenal, who lived in the early Second Century A.D. and was fierce hater of Christians, had this to say about the crime of the murder of innocent preborn children:

So great is the skill, so powerful the drugs, of the abortionist, paid to murder mankind within the womb. Ancient History Sourcebook: Juvenal: Satire VI

Even a proto-feminist, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who organized the first "women's rights" conference in Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848, referred to abortion as "disgusting and degrading crime," going on to write:

When you consider that women have been treated as property, it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit. (Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Letter to Julia Ward Howe, October 16, 1873, recorded in Howe's diary at Harvard University Library.)

Yes, it is possible by reason alone to come to recognize that a child, an innocent preborn human being, is the natural fruit of human conjugal relations.

It is an accident if one falls down a flight of stairs.

It is an accident if the motor vehicle one is driving goes out of control on an icy road.

It is not an "accident" if a child is conceived as the result of human conjugal relations.

To invade the sanctuary of the womb, therefore, in order to suck out, burn, slice or otherwise destroy a living human being is opposed to the very laws of nature itself. And if the child inside a mother's womb is not alive, why is it necessary to kill it? As to the child's humanity, you see, even secular science has proved that every fertilized embryonic human being has a distinctive DNA of his very own that does not change over the course of his life. All that is added, physically and temporally speaking, is time and nutrition.

As I said to an abortion advocate in a debate at Hofstra University, Hempstead, Long Island, New York, on the Feast of Saint Joseph, March 19, 1985:

"I will quit this debate right now if you can demonstrate to me which one of the cells in your body has a DNA structure different from the moment that you were conceived."

No true, objective biologist can deny the fact that a living, growing human being is created at the moment of fertilization. Ideologues can deny all arguments that can be advanced by means of reason and science, however, which is why arguing against abortion on the grounds of reason alone only takes one so far. Indeed, it is precisely because of naturalism that we have abortion-on-demand and in most other countries in the "developed" world today. Naturalistic arguments are not going to end abortion-on-demand, although the use of scientific facts and basic Natural Law reasoning can be useful as tools to help people to see through some of the illogic of the pro-death arguments. Such arguments are merely "building blocks," if you will, to lead people to accept the simple fact that it is God Himself Who has ordained these immutable facts of nature that do not depend upon human acceptance for their binding force or for their validity.

Reason Only Takes Us So Far; We Need Divine Revelation as Taught by the Catholic Church

Yes, it is from Divine Revelation that we must oppose the evils of our day, including the evil of abortion, as we try to plant the seeds as the totally consecrated slaves of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of His Most Blessed Mother for the conversion of men and their nations to an acceptance of the Catholic Faith as the one and only basis of personal and social order. All other "solutions" are really no "solutions" at all. They are illusions from the devil designed to distract people from the simple truth that it is a complete and humble subordination of all that we do, both individually in our own lives and collectively with others in society, to Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ as He has revealed Himself through His Catholic Church that we can root out sin and vice from our own lives and thus to ameliorate its effects in every aspect of the life of our nations.

The Second Person of the Blessed Trinity--the Logos, the Word--through Whom all things were made could have become Man in any way of His choosing. He chose to become Man by being conceived as a helpless embryo in His Blessed Mother's Virginal and Immaculate Womb by the power of the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost. Our Lord thereby placed Himself in solidarity with every child in every mother's womb no matter the condition of the conception and no matter the condition of the child conceived, whether "healthy" or suffering from some physical "deformity."

Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is God. He is the Lord of history, knowing all things. He knew what would be happening in the world in the Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries as hundreds of millions of babies worldwide would be killed by means of chemical and surgical abortions. He was teaching while He spent nine months in the tabernacle of His Blessed Mother's Virginal and Immaculate Womb that an attack upon an innocent preborn human being is a mystical attack upon Himself:

And the king answering, shall say to them: Amen I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these my least brethren, you did it to me. (Mt. 25: 40.)

No one can say that he "loves" Our Lord but nevertheless supports His mystical destruction in the persons of preborn babies in their mothers' wombs under cover of law, whether by surgical or chemical means. Those Catholics who say that they are "good Catholics" who "love" Our Lord while supporting the destruction of the least of His brethren in the womb are supporting an indirect attack on the Incarnation itself. Our Lord chose to be the prisoner of Our Lady's Virginal and Immaculate Womb. He teaches us that each preborn human life is inviolable from any direct, intentional attack upon it. No human being, whether acting individually or collectively with others in the institutions of civil governance, has any authority found in the binding precepts of the Divine Positive Law or the Natural Law to permit one single abortion, whether by chemical or surgical means.

Opposing abortion is as simple as saying: "God has given us His Fifth Commandment: 'Thou shalt not kill.' This is the end of the argument. Period."

Although various theologians over the centuries argued about when "ensoulment" takes place, such arguments are extraneous to the simple fact that an innocent human life never may be targeted deliberately as the first object of an attack upon it. Moreover, although Holy Mother Church has never defined "ensoulment" as such in a de fide manner as it relates to abortion, she has taught us that Our Lord had a true human nature hypostatically united to His Sacred Divinity at the moment of His Incarnation, that is, at the moment of His conception by the power of God the Holy Ghost. He had to have His Theandric soul at that moment, just as His Most Blessed Mother was preserved from all stain of Original and Actual Sin from the first moment of her Immaculate Conception in the womb of her mother, Good Saint Ann.

Pope Pius XI and Abortion

Noting the push of the anti-family movement in the 1920s that had resulted in laws in the United States and the Weimar Republic of Germany favorable to contraception and eugenic sterilization, as well as laws in the the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic that permitted surgical abortion-on-demand and in Germany that permitted surgical abortion in cases where a mother's life was said to be endangered, Pope Pius XI wrote the following in Casti Connubii, December 31, 1930:

But another very grave crime is to be noted, Venerable Brethren, which regards the taking of the life of the offspring hidden in the mother's womb. Some wish it to be allowed and left to the will of the father or the mother; others say it is unlawful unless there are weighty reasons which they call by the name of medical, social, or eugenic "indication." Because this matter falls under the penal laws of the state by which the destruction of the offspring begotten but unborn is forbidden, these people demand that the "indication," which in one form or another they defend, be recognized as such by the public law and in no way penalized. There are those, moreover, who ask that the public authorities provide aid for these death-dealing operations, a thing, which, sad to say, everyone knows is of very frequent occurrence in some places.

As to the "medical and therapeutic indication" to which, using their own words, we have made reference, Venerable Brethren, however much we may pity the mother whose health and even life is gravely imperiled in the performance of the duty allotted to her by nature, nevertheless what could ever be a sufficient reason for excusing in any way the direct murder of the innocent? This is precisely what we are dealing with here. Whether inflicted upon the mother or upon the child, it is against the precept of God and the law of nature: "Thou shalt not kill:" The life of each is equally sacred, and no one has the power, not even the public authority, to destroy it. It is of no use to appeal to the right of taking away life for here it is a question of the innocent, whereas that right has regard only to the guilty; nor is there here question of defense by bloodshed against an unjust aggressor (for who would call an innocent child an unjust aggressor?); again there is not question here of what is called the "law of extreme necessity" which could even extend to the direct killing of the innocent. Upright and skillful doctors strive most praiseworthily to guard and preserve the lives of both mother and child; on the contrary, those show themselves most unworthy of the noble medical profession who encompass the death of one or the other, through a pretense at practicing medicine or through motives of misguided pity.

All of which agrees with the stern words of the Bishop of Hippo in denouncing those wicked parents who seek to remain childless, and failing in this, are not ashamed to put their offspring to death: "Sometimes this lustful cruelty or cruel lust goes so far as to seek to procure a baneful sterility, and if this fails the fetus conceived in the womb is in one way or another smothered or evacuated, in the desire to destroy the offspring before it has life, or if it already lives in the womb, to kill it before it is born. If both man and woman are party to such practices they are not spouses at all; and if from the first they have carried on thus they have come together not for honest wedlock, but for impure gratification; if both are not party to these deeds, I make bold to say that either the one makes herself a mistress of the husband, or the other simply the paramour of his wife."

What is asserted in favor of the social and eugenic "indication" may and must be accepted, provided lawful and upright methods are employed within the proper limits; but to wish to put forward reasons based upon them for the killing of the innocent is unthinkable and contrary to the divine precept promulgated in the words of the Apostle: Evil is not to be done that good may come of it.

Those who hold the reins of government should not forget that it is the duty of public authority by appropriate laws and sanctions to defend the lives of the innocent, and this all the more so since those whose lives are endangered and assailed cannot defend themselves. Among whom we must mention in the first place infants hidden in the mother's womb. And if the public magistrates not only do not defend them, but by their laws and ordinances betray them to death at the hands of doctors or of others, let them remember that God is the Judge and Avenger of innocent blood which cried from earth to Heaven. (Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii, December 31, 1930.)

"States' righters" should take particular note of the last paragraph above: "Those who hold the reins of government should not forget that it is the duty of public authority by appropriate laws and sanctions to defend the lives of the innocent, and this all the more so since those whose lives are endangered and assailed cannot defend themselves. Among whom we must mention in the first place infants hidden in the mother's womb. And if the public magistrates not only do not defend them, but by their laws and ordinances betray them to death at the hands of doctors or of others, let them remember that God is the Judge and Avenger of innocent blood which cried from earth to Heaven." In other words, it is not up to the "people" or to their "state governments" to do anything except to determine what kind of penalties will be imposed upon those who participate in the killing of the innocent preborn. This is, as noted about five weeks ago now, a matter of God's rights, not states' rights.

As we know, the push for "liberalized divorce," which began in the State of North Dakota in 1890, and then contraception after World War I made the demand for surgical baby-killing inevitable. Divorce and contraception destabilized marriage and paved the way for abortion and the promotion of all manner of perversity under cover of law. This has resulted in the feminization of poverty, the rise of maladjusted children who spend most of their time in schools or day care centers or being shuttled back and forth between this or that step-family, rootlessness, violent crime, depression, suicide, drug and alcohol addiction and a variety of other social ills. This has also resulted in the acceptance of the so-called "lesser of two evils" to such an extent that the dose of the supposedly "lesser evil" becomes higher and higher in each succeeding election cycle, becoming indistinguishable ultimately from the supposedly "greater" evil. The odious Margaret Sanger's role in all of this was noted on this site most recently in From Luther to Sanger to Ferguson.

Indeed, the rise of the naturalistic, anti-Incarnational, semi-Pelagian civil state of Modernity has made mere mortals--contingent beings who did not create themselves and whose bodies are destined one day for the corruption of the grave prior to the General Resurrection of the Dead on the Last Day--the arbiters of moral right and moral wrong. Men no longer subordinate themselves and their nations to the magisterial authority of the Catholic Church in matters that pertain to the good of souls. They no longer recognize her Divinely-instituted right to interpose herself as a last resort--following the exhausting of her Indirect Power of teaching and preaching and exhortation--with the leaders of civil governments when the good of souls demands her maternal intervention. There is no longer a "brake" or a "check" upon the arbitrary misuse of civil power by men, making either individuals (as in the case of Protestant potentates in the immediate aftermath of the Protestant Revolt) or collectivities (various forms of "representative" government) the arbiters of moral right and moral wrong.

As I have noted before, a government organized rightly would recognize that civil laws and ordinances and judicial decisions and executive decrees contrary to the good of souls could be nullified by the plenary veto power of the Papal Nuncio--or some other representative agreed to in a Concordat between the Church and the state, thus ending the matter once and for all. Due warning would be given. All care would be taken to utilize such a plenary power judiciously and only when an action undertaken by the civil government is injurious in a most grievous manner to the good of souls. However, the recognition by the officials of a civil government of such a plenary power on the part of Holy Mother Church is an absolute precondition to the pursuit of justice in the temporal realm in light of the last end of man, which is the possession of the Beatific Vision of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost for all eternity in Heaven.

A constitution, whether written or unwritten (as is the case in the United Kingdom), that admits of no higher authority above the text of its own words is as defenseless against the efforts of legal positivists to render its words into meaninglessness as the words of Sacred Scripture are in the hands of Protestants and Modernist Catholics. It is relatively easy to render a human document into meaninglessness if one can do so with the very written Word of God Himself once one rejects the absolute and totally binding authority of the Catholic Church to guide men in all that pertains to the salvation of their immortal souls. Men must be enslaved to this or that false philosophy or ideology if they do not bind themselves to the liberating truths entrusted by the Divine Redeemer, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, solely to His Catholic Church for their eternal safekeeping and infallible explication. It is that simple.

Not a Single Abortion, No Exceptions, No Compromise of Catholic Truth, Not Once, Ever

No Catholic can support even a single, direct, intentional abortion in a single circumstance whatsoever. No Catholic can lend credence to anyone who believes that it is morally licit as a matter of moral principle and/or legal right under any circumstances whatsoever, including any or all of the so-called "hard case exceptions," to kill an preborn human being in his mother's womb. No Catholic can lend credence to anyone who believes that it is morally licit to prescribe any form of contraception, no less those that do indeed cause the death of an embryonic human being. To lend credence to those who believe that abortion is a matter of "states' rights" or that there is even one exception to the absolute inviolability of innocent human life in the womb or to those who support, if not prescribe, contraceptives of any type is to give voice to the devil himself, who wants nothing more than to convince Catholics that the perverted concept of "civil liberty" that has come into vogue in the past few centuries is higher than the law of God as He has entrusted it to His Catholic Church for its infallible explication and eternal safekeeping.

Pope Pius XII explained the necessity of opposing all "exceptions" to the inviolability of innocent human life, noting that each direct, intentional attack on an innocent human is proscribed by the moral law:

If there is another danger that threatens the family, not since yesterday, but long ago, which, however, at present, is growing visibly, it can become fatal [to societies], that is, the attack and the disruption of the fruit of conjugal morality.

We have, in recent years, taken every opportunity to expose the one or the other essential point of the moral law, and more recently to indicate it as a whole, not only by refuting the errors that corrupt it, but also showing in a positive sense, the office the importance, the value for the happiness of the spouses, children and all family, for stability and the greater social good from their homes up to the State and the Church itself.

At the heart of this doctrine is that marriage is an institution at the service of life. In close connection with this principle, we, according to the constant teaching of the Church, have illustrated a argument that it is not only one of the essential foundations of conjugal morality, but also of social morality in general: namely, that the direct attack innocent human life, as a means to an end - in this case the order to save another life - is illegal.

Innocent human life, whatever his condition, is always inviolate from the first instance of its existence and it can never be attacked voluntarily. This is a fundamental right of human beings. A fundamental value is the Christian conception of life must be respected as valid for the life still hidden in the womb against direct abortion and against all innocent human life thereafter. There can be no direct murders of a child before, during and after childbirth. As established may be the legal distinction between these different stages of development life born or unborn, according to the moral law, all direct attacks on inviolable human life are serious and illegal.

This principle applies to the child's life, like that of mother's. Never, under any circumstances, has the Church has taught that the life of child must be preferred to that of the mother. It would be wrong to set the issue with this alternative: either the child's life or that of mother. No, nor the mother's life, nor that of her child, can be subjected to an act of direct suppression. For the one side and the other the need can be only one: to make every effort to save the life of both, mother and child (see Pious XI Encycl. Casti Connubii, 31 dec. 1930, Acta Ap. Sedis vol. 22, p.. 562-563).

It is one of the most beautiful and noble aspirations of medicine trying ever new ways to ensure both their lives. What if, despite all the advances of science, still remain, and will remain in the future, a doctor says that the mother is going to die unless here child is killed in violation of God's commandment: Thou shalt not kill!  We must strive until the last moment to help save the child and the mother without attacking either as we bow before the laws of nature and the dispositions of Divine Providence.

But - one may object - the mother's life, especially of a mother of a numerous family, is incomparably greater than a value that of an unborn child. The application of the theory of balance of values to the matter which now occupies us has already found acceptance in legal discussions. The answer to this nagging objection is not difficult. The inviolability of the life of an innocent person does not depend by its greater or lesser value. For over ten years, the Church has formally condemned the killing of the estimated life as "worthless', and who knows the antecedents that provoked such a sad condemnation, those who can ponder the dire consequences that would be reached, if you want to measure the inviolability of innocent life at its value, you must well appreciate the reasons that led to this arrangement.

Besides, who can judge with certainty which of the two lives is actually more valuable? Who knows which path will follow that child and at what heights it can achieve and arrive at during his life? We compare Here are two sizes, one of whom nothing is known. We would like to cite an example in this regard, which may already known to some of you, but that does not lose some of its evocative value.

It dates back to 1905. There lived a young woman of noble family and even more noble senses, but slender and delicate health. As a teenager, she had been sick with a small apical pleurisy, which appeared healed; when, however, after contracting a happy marriage, she felt a new life blossoming within her, she felt ill and soon there was a special physical pain that dismayed that the two skilled health professionals, who watched  her with loving care. That old scar of the pleurisy had been awakened and, in the view of the doctors, there was no time to lose to save this gentle lady from death. The concluded that it was necessary to proceed without delay to an abortion.

Even the groom agreed. The seriousness of the case was very painful. But when the obstetrician attending to the mother announced their resolution to proceed with an abortion, the mother, with firm emphasis, "Thank you for your pitiful tips, but I can not truncate the life of my child! I can not, I can not! I feel already throbbing in my breast, it has the right to live, it comes from God must know God and to love and enjoy it." The husband asked, begged, pleaded, and she remained inflexible, and calmly awaited the event.

The child was born regularly, but immediately after the health of the mother went downhill. The outbreak spread to the lungs and the decay became progressive. Two months later she went to extremes, and she saw her little girl growing very well one who had grown very healthy. The mother looked at her robust baby and saw his sweet smile, and then she quietly died.

Several years later there was in a religious institute a very young sister, totally dedicated to the care and education of children abandoned, and with eyes bent on charges with a tender motherly love. She loved the tiny sick children and as if she had given them life. She was the daughter of the sacrifice, which now with her big heart has spread much love among the children of the destitute. The heroism of the intrepid mother was not in vain! (See Andrea Majocchi. " Between burning scissors," 1940, p.. 21 et seq.). But we ask: Is Perhaps the Christian sense, indeed even purely human, vanished in this point of no longer being able to understand the sublime sacrifice of the mother and the visible action of divine Providence, which made quell'olocausto born such a great result? (Pope Pius XII, Address to Association of Large Families, November 26, 1951; I used Google Translate to translate this address from the Italian as it is found at AAS Documents, p. 855; you will have to scroll down to page 855, which takes some time, to find the address.)

The story of the mother who gave up her life one hundred twelve years ago now rather than to kill the innocent child in he womb stands as a stark contrast to the naturalism displayed over two years ago now by Jorge Mario Bergoglio (see "Rabbits" to Jorge, God's Blessings to Pope Pius XII). The prayers of the mother who sacrificed her life rather than to authorize the killing of her child made possible her daughter's entry into the religious life. Bergoglio thinks not of such realities. Sadly, neither do many "pro-life" Catholics no matter where they fall across the vast expanse of the ecclesiastical divide in this time of apostasy and betrayal.

Alas, even those Catholics who are pro-life, no matter where they fall across the ecclesiastical divide, do not understand or accept these facts. They are willing to accept "crumb" from phony pro-life politicians in the false belief that we will "get somewhere" by means of the political process. We will not. Many of these truly good people, a lot of whom have worked their entire lives to defend the inviolability of preborn human life by volunteering at crisis pregnancy centers and by praying Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary in front of abortuaries and by speaking out against this crime that cries out to Heaven for vengeance, are looking for naturalistic solutions to the abortion genocide precisely because they have never been taught by the scions of the counterfeit church of conciliarism that the proximate cause for social problems in our world today is the overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King and that we must try to plant the seeds for the restoration of this Social Kingship, starting with the enthronement of our homes to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus and to the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary.

The Faith, The Faith, The Faith

Most Catholics have never even heard of, no less read, this beautiful and moving summary of Catholic truth found in Pope Leo XIII's Tametsi Futura Prospicientibus, November 1, 1900, that has been oft-quoted on this site:

We have but too much evidence of the value and result of a morality divorced from divine faith. How is it that, in spite of all the zeal for the welfare of the masses, nations are in such straits and even distress, and that the evil is daily on the increase? We are told that society is quite able to help itself; that it can flourish without the assistance of Christianity, and attain its end by its own unaided efforts. Public administrators prefer a purely secular system of government. All traces of the religion of our forefathers are daily disappearing from political life and administration. What blindness! Once the idea of the authority of God as the Judge of right and wrong is forgotten, law must necessarily lose its primary authority and justice must perish: and these are the two most powerful and most necessary bonds of society. Similarly, once the hope and expectation of eternal happiness is taken away, temporal goods will be greedily sought after. Every man will strive to secure the largest share for himself. Hence arise envy, jealousy, hatred. The consequences are conspiracy, anarchy, nihilism. There is neither peace abroad nor security at home. Public life is stained with crime.  (Pope Leo XIII, Tametsi Futura Prospicientibus, November 1, 1900.)

Having made war against the Social Reign of Christ King by its embrace of "religious liberty" and "healthy secularity--and blasphemed Him by means of the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo worship service, the counterfeit church of conciliarism has actually fed into the social evils it seeks to oppose as it robs Catholics yet attached to its structures of the means by which they can see the world clearly through the eyes of the true Faith and thus come to a recognition that we must be uncompromisingly Catholic in thought, word and speech at a times and in all circumstances without any exception whatsoever. The conciliarists have robbed Catholics of the ability to look that the following statement of Pope Saint Pius X and to recognize the truth contained therein:

By separating fraternity from Christian charity thus understood, Democracy, far from being a progress, would mean a disastrous step backwards for civilization. If, as We desire with all Our heart, the highest possible peak of well being for society and its members is to be attained through fraternity or, as it is also called, universal solidarity, all minds must be united in the knowledge of Truth, all wills united in morality, and all hearts in the love of God and His Son Jesus Christ. But this union is attainable only by Catholic charity, and that is why Catholic charity alone can lead the people in the march of progress towards the ideal civilization.. . .

Here we have, founded by Catholics, an inter-denominational association that is to work for the reform of civilization, an undertaking which is above all religious in character; for there is no true civilization without a moral civilization, and no true moral civilization without the true religion: it is a proven truth, a historical fact. (Pope Saint Pius X, Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910.)

It is essential that Catholics come to recognize that the remote cause of all problems, whether personal or social, is Original Sin and that the proximate cause for our social problems today is Modernity's warfare against the Incarnation and thus against the Social Reign of Christ the King, a warfare that has been aided and abetted by conciliarism's warfare against the necessity of restoring Christendom as the foundation, although never an absolute guarantor, of course, of personal and social order.

It is my hope and prayer that those who read this site will spend time today on their knees before Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in His Real Presence in the Most Blessed Sacrament (if a chapel where He is truly present is reasonably nearby) and to pray all fifteen decades of Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary. I realize that this may not be possible given the commitments and duties of one's state-in-life. One can, at the very least, send his Guardian Angel to pray for him in front of the Blessed Sacrament. And those who spend time commuting in their vehicles might be able to manage to pray all fifteen decades of Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary on their way to and from work or school.

Each family should, however, find some time today to pray an extra set of mysteries of the Rosary if possible to pray in reparation for abortion, both chemical and surgical, and for the conversion of those of who have had, performed, participated in or been supportive of abortion in any way, shape or form, remembering also to pray for the day that the United States of America will become the Catholic States of America. God will never "bless" a land that is responsible for the shedding of so much innocent blood under cover of law, a land that has spread, in the name of "civil and religious liberty," mind you, Protestant "churches" and Masonic "lodges" in formerly Catholic countries, taking many souls out of the true Church in the process, a country that has spread fashions and "entertainment" fare that have been responsible for the poisoning of so many souls

While it is important to continue to be a peaceful, prayerful presence in front of the abortuaries as we pray our Rosaries alongside our fellow traditional Catholics (we cannot participate in Catholic "ecumenical" events where the false "luminous mysteries" are prayed) and to do the work of sidewalk counseling for those who are so called, it is necessary first and foremost to build up the Kingship of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in our own souls, seeking to making reparation for our own many sins, especially those, if any, against the virtues of Chastity and Modesty, as the precondition for helping to plant a few seeds for the restoration for His Social Reign over us and our nations.

In addition to our daily Rosaries and the acts of reparation we make to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, who better to turn do in our efforts to restore the Faith in this time of barbarism in the world and apostasy and betrayal on the part of the Modernists than to our beloved Saint Joseph, the Patron of the Universal Church and the Protector of the Faithful:

O Blessed Saint Joseph, tenderhearted father, faithful guardian of Jesus, chaste spouse of the Mother of God, we pray and beseech thee to offer to God the Father, His divine Son, bathed in blood on the cross for sinners, and through the thrice-holy Name of Jesus, obtain for us from the eternal Father the favor we implore (mention your petitions):

Appease the Divine anger so justly inflamed by our crimes, beg of Jesus mercy for thy children. Amid the splendors of eternity, forget not the sorrows of those who suffer, those who pray, those who weep; stay the Almighty arm which smites us, that by thy prayers and those of thy most holy Spouse, the Heart of Jesus may be moved to pity and to pardon. Amen.

Today is the Feast of Chair of Saint Peter at Rome.

The readings for Matins in today's Divine Office contained a sermon on the Chair of Saint Peter at Rome that had been delievered by Pope Saint Leo the Great;

When the twelve holy Apostles had received from the Holy Ghost the power to speak all languages, they divided the whole world into districts, which they severally allotted to themselves as fields for their Gospel labours. Then was Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, sent to the capital city of the Roman Empire, that he might cause the light to shine thence throughout the whole body of the civilized nations. At that time what nation was there that had no representative in Rome? When Rome had learnt, what people that did not learn too?

In Rome were the dreams of an unbelieving philosophy to be destroyed, in Rome were the empty utterances of earthly wisdom to be confuted, in Rome was idolatry to be overcome, in Rome profanity to be put down, even in Rome, where the activity of superstition had gathered together from the whole earth every error which it could find. O most blessed Apostle Peter! this was the city to which thou didst not shrink to come. The Apostle Paul, thy comrade in glory, was yet occupied in founding the Churches, and thou didst enter alone into that forest of wild beasts roaring furiously; thou didst commit thyself to that stormy ocean, more boldly than when thou walkest upon the waters to come to Jesus.

Thou hadst already taught them of the circumcision who were converted; thou hadst founded the Church of Antioch, the first that bore the noble name of Christian; thou hadst published the law of the Gospel throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia; and thou didst not fear for the hardness of thy work, nor turn back because of thine old age, but didst boldly set up the trophy of the cross of Christ upon those Roman walls, where the Providence of God had appointed the throne of thine honour, and the glorious -scene of thy passion. (Pope Saint Leo the Great, As found in Matins, The Divine Office, Feast of the Chair of Saint Peter at Rome.)

It is indeed ironic that the Vatican itself in its conciliar captivity has returned to the state of superstition that characterized the City of Rome at the time Saint Peter established his Chair there in the seventh decade of the First Century A.D. It is even more ironic that the world, having thrown off the Social Reign of Christ the King, dreams anew that a "better" world can be secured by this or that naturalistic philosophy. It is no wonder that Men Continue to Love the Darkness Rather Than The Light of the Gentiles, Christ the King.

Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., provided us with a marvelous reflection on the history and signficance of today's great feast:

The Archangel Gabriel told the Blessed Virgin Mary, in the Annunciation, that the Son Who was to be born of Her should be a King, and that of His Kingdom there should be no end. Hence, when the Magi were led from the East to the Crib of Jesus, they proclaimed in Jerusalem that they came to seek a King. But his new Empire needed a capital; and whereas the King, Who was to fix His throne in it, was, according to the eternal decrees, to re-ascend into Heaven, it was necessary that the visible character of His Royalty should be left here on earth, and this even to the end of the world. He that should be invested with this visible character of Christ our King would be the Vicar of Christ.

Our Lord Jesus Christ chose Simon for this sublime dignity of being His Vicar. He changed his name into one which signifies the Rock, that is “Peter;” and in giving him this new name, He tells us that the whole Church throughout the world is to rest upon this man as upon a Rock which nothing shall ever move (Matt. 16: 18). But this promise of Our Lord included another; namely, that as Peter was to close his earthly career by the cross, He would give him Successors in whom Peter and his authority should live to the end of time.

But again, there must be some mark or sign of this succession, to designate to the world who the Pontiff is on whom, to the end of the world, the Church is to be built. There are so many Bishops in the Church; in which one of them is Peter continued? This Prince of the Apostles founded and governed several Churches; but only one of these was watered with his blood, and that one was Rome; only one of these is enriched with his Tomb, and that one is Rome; the Bishop of Rome, therefore, is the Successor of Peter, and consequently the Vicar of Christ. It is of the Bishop of Rome alone that it is said: Upon thee will I build My Church; and again: To thee will I give the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven (St. Matthew 16: 19); and again: I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not; do thou confirm thy brethren (St. Luke 22: 32); and again: Feed my lambs; feed my sheep. (St. John 21: 15, 17).

Protestantism saw the force of this argument, and therefore strove to throw doubts on St. Peter’s having lived and died in Rome. They who labored to establish doubts of this kind rightly hoped that, if they could gain their point, they would destroy the authority of the Roman Pontiff, and even the very notion of a Head of the Church. But History has refuted this puerile objection, and now all learned Protestants agree with Catholics in admitting a fact which is one of the most incontestable, even on the ground of human authority.

It was in order to nullify, by the authority of the Liturgy, this strange pretension of Protestants, that Pope Paul IV, in 1558, restored the ancient Feast of St. Peter’s Chair at Rome, and fixed it on the 18th of January. For many centuries the Church had not solemnized the mystery of the Pontificate of the Prince of the Apostles on any distinct feast, but had made the single Feast of February 22nd serve for both the Chair at Antioch and the Chair at Rome. From that time forward, the 22nd of February has been kept for the Chair at Antioch, which was the first occupied by the Apostle...

When St. Peter entered Rome, he came to realize and explain the destinies of this Queen of Cities; he came to promise her an Empire even greater than the one she already possessed. This new Empire is not to be founded by the sword, as was the first. Rome has been hitherto the proud mistress of nations; henceforth she is to be the Mother of the world by Charity; and though all peaceful, yet her Empire shall last to the end of time. Let us listen to St. Leo the Great, describing to us in one of the finest of his Sermons, and in his own magnificent style, the humble yet all-eventful entrance of the Fisherman of Genesareth into the Capital of the Pagan world:

“The good and just and omnipotent God, Who never refused His mercy to the human race, and instructed all men in general in the knowledge of Himself by His super-abundant benefits, took pity, by a more hidden counsel and a deeper love, on the voluntary blindness of them that had gone astray, and on the wickedness which was growing in its proneness to evil; and sent therefore into the world His co-equal and co-eternal Word. The Word being made Flesh did so unite the Divine and human nature, as that the deep abasement of the one was the highest uplifting of the other. (The Liturgical Year.)

Our Lady knew that the bridal couple’s wedding feast in Cana was running out of wine before the bride and groom did. She beseeched her Divine Son, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, to assist them. Unable to refuse her anything, Our Lord complied, thereby performing his first public miracle, which was a foreshadowing of the Holy Eucharist, at her humble behest.

Similarly, Our Lord will not His dear Blessed Mother’s request for the restoration of a true pope o the Throne of Saint Peter sooner rather than later if he beseech her with humility and with confidence, especially through her Most Holy Rosary as His own consecrated slaves that her Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart. 

Saint Prisca (Saint Priscilla), whose feast was commemorated yesterday, that is, Friday, January 18, 2019, tthe Feast of the Chair of Saint Peter: Apart from being the Feast of Chair of Saint Peter at Rome. Saint Prisca refused to do what "Saint" John Paul II did so freqeuently and what Antipope Emeritus Benedict XVI did so frequently and that Jorge Mario Bergoglio does even more frequently than his two immeidate predecessors, namely, to deny Christ the King before men in order to appear "respectful" of those who "believe differently."

Father A. J. O'Reilly, drawing upon The Acts of the Martyrs, provided us with the details of Saint Prisca's glorious martrydom in his The Martyrs of the Coliseum: 

At the time Claudius was Caesar, he issued a new and most impious edict to the whole world, that the Christians should offer sacrifice to the gods or be put to death. He ordered his presidents and judges to carry out his law, that he might destroy the the worship of the Christians; he enjoined on them, moreover, that those consenting to the sacrifice should be considered worthy of great honour, while non-conformists should be treated with the utmost cruelty. In order to manifest the earnestness of his impious law, this Emperor Claudius held sacrifices in the Temple of Apollo, and at the same time ordered the soldiers to seize all who were known to be Christians, men and women, and by dint of terror and direful tortures force them to sacrifice to the gods.

There were then malignant men who ardently desired to destroy the Christian worship; and coming to a certain church, they found the blessed Prisca, praying. She was of noble blood; her father had been thrice consul, and was exceedingly rich. This holy child was in her seventh year, and was adorned with the grace of god and the most perfect purity of morals. The ministers of the Emperor said to her: "Our Emperor Claudius has commanded you to sacrifice voluntarily to the gods?" The blessed Prisca said with a joyful heart" "First let me enter the holy universal Church, that I may commend myself to my Lord Jesus Christ, and then we will go in peace. It is necessary that, in the name of our Lord, I confound your unworthy Emperor, and assist in the triumph of Jesus. And returning to the church, she completed her prayers.

Having finished her petition, she went with them to the Emperor. the ministers, entering into the apartments of Claudius, said to him: "This girl is willing to obey the commands of your majesty." On hearing this he rejoiced exceedingly, and ordered her to be brought into his presence. When she was brought into the palace before him, he said: "Thou art great, O god Apollo! and glorious above all the gods, who has brought me this illustrious virgin, so beautiful and with such good dispositions." Then turning to blessed Prisca, he said" "I have arranged to have you brought to me, to make you my mistress, and the sharer in the power of my kingdom." To this Prisca said: "But I will sacrifice without blood, and only to the immaculate God, my Lord Jesus Christ."

The Emperor, hearing these things, and not understanding their meaning, ordered her to be led to the Temple of Apollo that she might sacrifice to him. The holy virgin being ordered to enter the temple, said with a cheerful countenance to the Emperor: "Do you also enter, and all the priests of Apollo, that you may see how the omnipotent and immaculate Lord is pleased with the sacrifices of His faithful." The Emperor ordered all who had gathered round to watch what she was going to do.

Blessed Prisca said: "Glory be to Thee, O glorious Father! I invoke Thee, I implore Thee, cast down this motionless and dumb idol, the vile emblem of falsehood and corruption; but do Thou, O Lord, hear me, a sinner, that this Emperor may know how vain is the hope he has placed in his idols, and that he ought to adore no other god but Thee alone."

When she had prayed thus, there was immediately a great earthquake, so that the whole city was shaken; the statue of the god shook, and fell to the ground; in like manner the fourth part of the temple was destroyed, and overwhelmed a multitude of people, together with the priests of the idol.

The Emperor was terrified, and fled. Prisca said to him: "Stay, Emperor, and assist; your Apollo is broken to pieces, and you may now gather up the fragments, moreover, his priests are destroyed in the same ruin; let him come now and assist them."

And the demon who dwelt in the idol cried out with a loud voice: "O virgin Prisca! handmaid of the great God who reigns in heaven, thou who keepest His commandments and hast stripped me of my habitation!--I have lived here for sixty-seven years, and under Claudius Caesar twelve. Many martyrs have come and have not exposed me. Having under me ninety-three other most impious spirits, I order each of them to sacrifice to me daily fifty souls of men. O Emperor, persecutor of the Christians! thou hast found a holy soul, through whom thou wilt finish thy reign in disgrace." These words were spoken by a loud voice and great lamentation; terrible darkness surrounded those who were present, and they went away in great trepidation and doubt.

The Emperor, not understanding that it was by the divine power that the idol had been overthrown, ordered her to be buffeted on the face; and when the executioners had beaten her for some time, they lost their strength and cried out: "Woe to us sinners! surely we suffer more than this girl: she i snot hurt, and we are in pain. We beseech thee, O Emperor, to have her taken from us." But the Emperor, enraged against them, ordered the face of the blessed Prisca to be beaten still more. Looking towards heaven, the holy virgin said--

"Blessed art Thou, O Lord Jesus Christ! for Thou givest eternal peace to those who believe in Thee." And when she had said this, she was surrounded with a bright light, and a voice from heaven was heard saying--

"Daughter, be of good courage and fear nothing, for I am the God whom thou invokest, and I will never abandon thee."

After these things the Emperor was enraged almost to madness.

The next day, sitting before his tribunal, the Emperor said: "The that wicked little sorceress be brought in, that we may see some more of her charms."

When she was brought before him, he said to her: "Will you consent to live with me, and sacrifice to the gods?"

But she firmly replied: "Cease, most impious of men, and son of a satanic father! Are you not ashamed to insult a helpless girl and ill treat her thus, when you know she will never consent to sacrifice to your idols?"

Then the Emperor in a fury ordered her to be stript and to be beaten with whips. The child's body appeared as white as snow, and so bright was the bright light that issued from her, that the eyes of the beholders were dazzled. Whilst they were beating her, the holy virgin said: "I have cried with my voice to the Lord, and He heard me in the combat of my passion."

The Emperor, hearing her pay thus, said: "Do you think you will seduce me with your magic?"

But blessed Prisca answered: "Thy father Satan is the prince of all darkness; he loves fornicators and embraces magicians." The Emperor then ordered her to be beaten with rods, but the Saint, hearing this new punishment, smiled and said: "O unjust and impious man, enemy of God and inventor of evils! you are too blinded to know the blessings you are procuring for me from the Eternal Creator." (Father A. J. O'Reilly, The Martyrs of the Roman Coliseum.)

Why, ladies and gentlemen, are so many Catholics fearful of the likes of the petty caesars who are said to pose "greater evils" even though the supposedly "lesser evils" are in total agreement with their false opposites that the Catholic Faith is not now nor can ever be the unifying principle of any nation, including the United States of America? Why are we not as willing as Saint Prisca to suffer torture and death in order to bear witness to the Holy Faith? Why all of the fear and histrionics?

As has been noted in many other articles on this site, the conciliar "popes" are as one with the anti-Incarnational premies of the Judeo-Masonic civil state of Modernity. They do not believe that the Cathoic is now nor can ever be the unifying principle of any nation as to assert this would be to violate the tenets of "religious liberty."

Saint Prisca did not believe in religious liberty. She believed in bearing a courageous witness to the Holy Faith, enduring many attempts to kill her before she did indeed become a martyr for the Faith. As is recorded in The Martyrs of the Roman Coliseum: 

Then the Emperor, enraged beyond measure, ordered her to be led outside the city to be beheaded. The holy martyr Prisca, rejoicing said: "O Lord Jesus Christ, Redeemer of all, I praise Thee, I adore Thee, I beseech Thee, I implore Thee, who hast liberated me from all the evils intended for me. Save me now, O Lord Jesus Christ, with whom there is no acceptation of persons; perfect me in the confession of Thy name; order me to be received into Thy glory, that I may happily escape the evils by which I am surrounded; and reward the impious Claudius according to his works towards Thy helpless handmaid!" And having said this she turned towards the executioners and addressed them thus: "Fulfil the orders you have received.: And thus did the blessed Prisca end her life by the sword; and a voice was heard from heaven, saying: "Because thou hast fought for My name, Prisca, enter into the kingdom of heaven with all My saints." And when this was said, the executioners fell and their faces and died. 

Then it was announced to the Bishop of Rome by a Christian who watched in concealment, how they led the blessed Prisca along the Ostian Way, to about the tenth milestone, and there beheaded her, and took away her life. The Bishop, having heard this, went with him to the place he mentioned, and they found her body between two eagles, once at her head and the other at her feet, guarding it, lest the beasts should touch it. There was a dazzling light round her head, and her face smiled in the Holy Spirit. Then the Bishop himself and his companion dug a grave, and buried her in the spot.

When the Emperor heard all these things, he was struck the same day with terrible grief in his heart, and like a rabid dog ate his own flesh, and groaning and trembling, he cried: "Have pity on me, O God of the Christians! I know I have transgressed Thy precepts, O Christ, and blasphemed Thee; I have persecuted Thy name, and have ungratefully sinned against Thee; Thou rewardest me as I have desired." He expired, convulsed and writhing in agony, and a terrible voice was heard saying, "Enter, Emperor, into the furnace of hell; to to exterior darkness, for gloomy places of pain are prepared for thee." There was a great earthquake, and there believed that day, of those who were in Rome, on account of the voice that was heard from heaven, more than five thousand, not counting women and children. the martyrdom of the blessed Prisca took place on the 18th day of January. (Father A. J. O'Reilly, The Martyrs of the Roman Coliseum.)

No, Saint Prisca was not a practitioner of false ecumenism. She was a faithful Catholic who hated and mocked false religions, which is precisely the opposite of what the conciliar "popes" have done.

The Roman Martyrology is replete with like rebukes to everything that Jorge Mario Bergoglio says and does, and I mean absolutely everything.

Unlike the conciliar “popes,” including Senor Jorge from Buenos Aires, Argentina, who have engaged in acts of idolatry by entering into places of false worship and esteeming the images of symbols found in such dens of the devil, our saints have given up their very lives and endured the harshest of tortures to avoid even giving a momentary appearance of approval to any kind of false religion, its images and its rites.

Such is the case also of the saints whose feast is commemorated tomorrow, January 19, 2019, Our Lady's Saturday in Christmastide, Saints Marius, his wife, Saint Martha, and their two sons, Saints Audifax and Abachum, who were martyred during the year 270 A.D. during the reign of Emperor Claudius II (Claudius Gothicus), after refusing to sacrifice to the idols.

Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., related the heroism of Saint Marius and his companions, the very members of his own family, in The Liturgical Year, which includes the lesson from Matins for today’s Divine Office:

Christians from all parts of the world have ever flocked to Rome as to the rock of faith and the foundation of the Church, and honoured with the greatest reverence and piety the spot hallowed by the sepulchre of the Prince of the Apostles. These words of Holy Church are exemplified in the Martyrs of to-day. Fired with ambition to have some part and fellowship in the glorious Society of the holy Apostles and Martyrs, they left all things and hastened to the Eternal City, there to receive in the fullest measure what they sought. Like the Magi of old they came from the far East. The star of faith had shone for them, and in obedience to its call they set forth in all eagerness to offer their gifts of homage and loyalty to the divine King in the person of His Vicar and his suffering members. Such generosity was not left unrewarded; our Emmanuel crowned it with the laurels of martyrdom admitting them into that cloud of witnesses that ever stand about him. Let us keep before our minds with our Lord, the author and finisher of their faith, this great and glorious band of martyrs, so that we too may ever run unwearied and with courage so that we too may ever run unwearied and with courage and patience in the fight proposed to us.

The following lesson is given in the office:

Marius was a Persian of high rank, who came to Rome in the reign of the Emperor Claudius, with his wife Martha, who was equally noble, and their two sons Audifax and Abachum, to pray at the graves of the Martyrs. Here they comforted the Christians who were in prison, and whom they relieved by their ministrations and alms, and buried the bodies of the Saints. For these acts they were all arrested, but no threats or terrors could move them to sacrifice to idols. They were accordingly mangled with clubs, and drawn with ropes, after which they were burnt by applying plates of red-hot metal to their bodies, and their flesh partly torn off with metal hooks. Lastly their hands were all cut off, and they were fastened together by the neck, in which state they were driven through the city to the thirteenth mile-stone on the Cornelian Way, a place now called Santa Ninfa, where they were to die. Martha addressed a moving exhortation to her husband and sons to hold out bravely to the last, for the love of Jesus Christ; and was then herself drowned. The other three martyrs were next beheaded in the same sand-pit. Their bodies were thrown into a fire. The lady Felicity of Rome collected the half-burnt remains, and caused them to be buried at her own estate. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year: Volume III: Christmas—Book II, pp. 337-338.)

Jorge Mario Bergoglio, considers religious differences to be a matter of individual thoughts or “feelings,” leading to an obligation on the part of “believers” to respect all “religions” as pleasing to God and thus capable of promoting peace and justice.

Pope Leo XIII explained in Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885, that such practical religious indifferentism leads to the triumph of practical atheism in men and their nations:

To hold, therefore, that there is no difference in matters of religion between forms that are unlike each other, and even contrary to each other, most clearly leads in the end to the rejection of all religion in both theory and practice. And this is the same thing as atheism, however it may differ from it in name.Men who really believe in the existence of God must, in order to be consistent with themselves and to avoid absurd conclusions, understand that differing modes of divine worship involving dissimilarity and conflict even on most important points cannot all be equally probable, equally good, and equally acceptable to God. (Pope Leo XIII, Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885. See also Practical Atheism as the Lowest Common Denominatorand Not A Mention of Christ the King.)

The saint who is commemorated tomorrow, Saturday, Januuary 19, 2019, after Our Lady' Saturday and the Commemoratoin of Saint Marius and his Companions, Saint Canute IV, King of Denmark, was killed as a result of a scheme hatched by his own brother, Olaf, who despise the fact that Saint Canute sought to reproach sinners and to call them to conversion. In other words, Olaf is a figure of Jorge the Oaf, who believes that efforts to convert non-Catholics and those Catholics who are living dissolute lives are examples of “idolatry” and “judgmentalism.”

We turn once again to Dom Prosper Gueranger’s The Liturgical Year:

The Magi Kings as we have already observed, have been followed to the Crib of Jesus by saintly Christian monarchs on the Church’s Calendar during the season which is consecrated to the Mystery of his Birth. The eleventh century is one of the most glorious of the Christian era, and gave, both to the Church and the various states of Europe, a great number of saintly Kings. Among them Canute the Fourth of Denmark stands pre-eminent by reason of the aureole of his martyrdom. He had every quality which forms a Christian prince: he was a zealous propagator of the faith of Christ, he was a brave warrior, he was pious, and he was charitable to the poor. His zeal for the Church (and in those days her rights were counted as the rights of the people) was made the pretext for putting him to death: he died in the midst of a sedition as a victim sacrifice for his people’s sake. His offering to the new-born King was that of his blood; and in exchange for the perishable crown he lost, he received that which the Church gives to her Martyrs, and which can never be taken away. The history of Denmark in the eleventh century is scarce known by the rest of the world; but the glory of that country’s having had one of kings a Martyr is known throughout the whole Church, and the Church inhabits the whole earth. This power, possessed by the Spouse of Christ of conferring honour on the name and actions of the servants and friends of God, is one of the grandest spectacles out of heaven; for when she holds up a name as worthy of honour, that name becomes immortalized, whether he who bore it were a powerful king or the poorest peasant.

We find the following life of this holy King given in the Lessons until recently used in the Breviary:

Canute the Fourth, son of Sweyn Estrithius, King of Denmark, was conspicuous for his faith, piety, and purity of life, and even from this infancy gave proof of exceeding holiness. Having been elected by the votes of the people to the throne held by his father, he at once began zealously to promote religion, to add to the revenues of the Churches, and to provide the same with costly fittings and furniture. Being also inflamed with zeal for the propagation of the faith, he refused not to enter into just war with barbarous nations which, when he had conquered and subdued, he subjected to the law of Christ. Having obtained several glorious victories, and increased the riches of the treasury, he laid his regal diadem at the feet of a crucifix, offering himself and his kingdom to him who is the King of kings and Lord of lords. He chastised his body by fasting, hair-shirts and disciplines. He was assiduous in prayer and contemplation, liberal in his alms to the poor, and ever kind to all, never deviating from the path of justice and the divine commandments.

By these and other such virtues the holy King made rapid strides to the summit of perfection. Now it happened that William, Duke of Normandy, invaded the kingdom of England with a formidable army, and the English sought assistance from the Danes. The King resolved to grant them his aid, and intrusted the expedition to his brother Olaf. But he, from the desire of getting possession of his throne, turned his forces against the King, and stirred up the soldiers and the people to rebellion. Neither were there wanting motives for this rebellion; the for the King had issued laws commanding the payment of ecclesiastical tithes, the observance of the commandments of God and his Church, and the infliction of penalties on defaulters; all which were made a handle of by perverse and wicked malcontents, for spreading discontent, exciting the people to revolt, and at last, to plot the death of the saintly King.

Foreknowing what was to happen, the King saw that he would soon be put to death for justice’ sake. Having foretold it, he set out to Odense, where, entering into the Church of St. Alan the Martyr, as the place of combat, he fortified himself with the Sacraments, and commended his last struggle to our Lord. He had not long been there, when a band of conspirators arrived. They endeavoured to set fire to the Church, to burst open the doors, and to force an entrance. But failing in this, they scaled the windows, and with great violence, threw a shower of stones and arrows upon the holy King, who was on his knees, praying for his enemies. Wounded by the stones and arrows, and at least pierced through with a spear, he was crowned with a glorious martyrdom, and fell before the altar with his arms stretched out. Gregory the Seventh was the reining Pontiff. God showed by many miracles how glorious was his Martyr; and Denmark was afflicted with a great famine and sundry calamities, in punishment of the sacrilegious murder which had been perpetrated. Many persons, who were afflicted with various maladies, found aid and health by praying at the tomb of the Martyr. On one occasion, when the Queen endeavoured during the night to take up his body secretly and carry it to another place, she was deterred from her design by being struck with fear at the sight of a most brilliant light, which came down from heaven.

Yes, Saint Canute IV, King of Denmark, was resented because he enjoined his people to obey God’s Commandments. Jorge Mario Bergoglio has no use for the Ten Commandments as he truly believes that their strict observance is impossible and that those who demand such strict adherence are “Pharisees.”

Dom Prosper Gueranger’s prayer to Saint Canute is one that we should make our own:

O holy king! The Sun of Justice had risen upon thy country, and all thy ambition was that they people might enjoy the fullness of its light and warmth. Like the Magi of the East, thou didst lay thy crown at the feet of the Emmanuel, and at length didst offer thy very life in his service and in that of his Church. But thy people were not worthy of thee; they shed thy blood, as the ungrateful Israel shed the Blood of the Just One who is now born unto us, and whose sweet Infancy we are now celebrating. Thou didst offer thy martyrdom for the sins of thy people offer it now also for them, that they may recover the true faith that have so long lost. Pray for the Rulers of Christian lands, that they may be faithful to their duties, zealous for justice, and may have respect for the liberty of the Church. Ask for us of the Divine Infant a devotedness in his cause like that which glowed in thy breast; and since we have not a crown to lay at his feet, pray for us that we may be generous to give our whole heart. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year: Volume III: Christmas—Book II, pp. 339-342.)

The people of Denmark preferred to remain in the darkness of their sins. They did not want to have their consciences singed with the burning torch of truth spoken by their own king, Saint Canute IV.

“Pope Francis” believes that is “merciless” to singe the consciences of hardened sinners, which is why he goes out of his way to embrace them even as they sin without demanding them to amend their lives by quitting their sins. Life is, as he has said so many times, a big “party,” right?

Wrong.

The Roman Martyrology today also contains the name of the great Saint Wulstan, to whom we have prayed every day for the past ten years now since we learned of his life and his example.

Saint Wulstan was a truly humble priest, monk, and prior who became the Bishop of Worcester, England, before the Norman invasion in 1066, a time of great tumult for his own Anglo-Saxon people as they came to be governed by foreigners from across the English Channel. He did not castigate the conquerors, however, as he wanted to be able to exhort them in behalf of the cause of justice and the good of souls, a zeal that won for him the respect of King William I, sometimes referred to as William te Conqueror, who sought out the counsel of this humble and pious shepherd of his flock.

Dom Prosper Guerganer’s The Liturgical Year contains his own summary of Saint Wulstan’s life and the reading in the Divine Office that are no longer to be found in the Matins for this day:

Several dioceses in England celebrate on this day the feast of Saint Wulstan, Bishop of Worcester. The last of the Anglo-Saxon saints, Wulstan was worthy to close the long line of men and women who had earned for the country the proud title of “Insula Sanctorum.” His character as sketched by a contemporary is singularly attractive. A simple man, strong in his simplicity, yet kindly and gifted with a merry wit, he held straight on his course in God’s service as a priest, monk, prior, and bishop, spending himself in the laborious offices of his ministry, much more intent on the burdens of his position than on emoluments. A love of beauty ran through his life and manifested itself in building fine churches, in his care of books, in his love for the freshness of children.

In his long life of eighty-seven years Wulstan saw the gradual passing of the old order, the reigns of Ethelebert, Canute, Edward the Confessor and of his friend King Harold down to the fateful day when power passed into Norman hands [1066]. With all his love for his own land and dynasty the Saint gave not time to useless regrets. He had warned the people that for their sins the country would fall under the dominion of strangers, and when the conquest became a fact he threw his great influence into support of the new dynasty. But he was no time-server, and had no hesitation in confronting the Conqueror to demand redress of injustice done to his See. King William learned to admit the sturdy Saxon prelate, and Wulstan, instead of sharing the fate of nearly all the native bishops who were removed and replaced by Normans, remained in his See and was made the King’s lieutenant for the Midlands.

The following are the lessons of Saint Wulstan.

Wulstan whilst a simple priest had acquired to himself a great renown for holiness. Afterwards having become a monk of Worcester Prior, he was in a short time raised to the government of the same church. Almost entirely ignorant of secular learning, he gave himself wholly to spiritual science. He was numbered among the most eloquent speakers of the English language, in proof of which, this is principally to be remembered, that by his assiduous preaching he converted the citizens of Bristol, whom neither the regal nor the pontifical power could withdraw from the infamous slave trade.

Being made bishop, he sedulously fulfilled all the duties of a good shepherd. He began to visit all parts of his diocese, to give ordinations, to dedicate churches, to reprove sinners, and to animate the souls committed to his care, both by word and example, to the desire of eternal life. It frequently happened that he fasted from sunrise till nightfall whilst he was occupied in confirming children to the number of two or three thousand who were brought from all parts. Such was his meekness and zeal for souls in hearing confessions that persons came to him from all parts of England, and by his admonitions sinners amended their crimes by worthy deeds of penance.

Neither did he whilst watching over the salvation of others neglect his own. He served God by the constant celebration of Mass, by assiduous prayer, by continued abstinence from flesh-meat and by overflowing charity to the needy. The more humbly he esteemed himself, by so much the more his virtues were proclaimed by all, so that not only the English and Normans, but the kings and rulers of foreign nations also commended themselves to his prayers. He died, a very old man, in the year from the Incarnation of our Lord, one thousand and ninety-five, and was buried in the church of Worcester. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year: Volume III: Christmas—Book II, pp. 343-345.)

Yes, each of the saints mentioned above serve as rebukes, both individually and collectively, to the religious indifferentism, the blasphemies, the heresies, and the scandalous sacrileges promoted by the conciliar "popes," including the current universal public face of apostasy, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who uses viscera and demagoguery with a diabolically-inspired ferocity. Saint Wulstan reproved sinners. Bergoglio pats them on the back while reproving those who seek their conversion as “obstinate” and idolaters, which is why his unfailingly loyal support for pro-abortion statists worldwide is all the more damnable on a day when so many Americans will be marching for life even though they do not realize that there is a battle for the life of the Holy Faith that is being waged by the man most consider to be "Pope Francis,"  a war that is being waged more overtly than at any time since the death of Pope Pius XII on October 9, 1958.

May the Rosaries we pray this day help to make reparation for the crimes of the baby-killers as well as for those of whose continue to kill the life of the soul and thus made more possible the daily war against all innocent human life, whether in the womb by means of chemical and surgical baby-killing or by the killing off of anyone after birth under the aegis of "brain death" or in the name of "compassion" by means of "palliative care." 

We can plant the seeds for the conversion of men and their nations to the true Faith, outside of which there is no salvation and without which there can be no true social order.

Viva Cristo Rey! Vivat Christus Rex!

Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us.

Saint Prisca, pray for us.

Saints Marius, Martha, Audifax and Abucham, pray for us.

Sant Canute, King of Denmark, pray for us.

Saint Wulstan, pray for us.