Advancing by Leaps and Bounds

by Thomas A. Droleskey

Unbridled evil under cover of law is advancing by leaps and bounds in the United States of America and elsewhere in most of the world. Unbridled evil under cover of law must advance by leaps and bounds in the United States of America and elsewhere in most of the world.

Why?

It's really very, very simple: although there will always be sin in the world as a result of fallen human nature, the public promotion of sin under cover of law and in every aspect of popular culture will accelerate over time when Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is not recognized as the King of men and their nations and when His Most Blessed Mother, Mary our Immaculate Queen, is not showered with public acts of devotion that are sponsored by the civil state. It is so important for Catholics to recognize this truth once and for all so that they will be able to see that this or that advance of evil is but a consequence of a world of naturalism that has unleashed forces of evil against which there are no bulwarks in civil society.

Catholicism is the one and only foundation of personal and social order. The entire fabric of the modern civil state, including the United States of America, is based upon the rejection of the necessity of men and their nations subordinating themselves at all times in those things that pertain to the good of souls to the Deposit of Faith that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ has entrusted exclusively to His true Church that He founded upon the rock of Peter, the Pope, for Its eternal safekeeping and infallible explication and upon the rejection of the necessity of individuals to have belief in, access to and cooperation with Sanctifying Grace in order to be virtuous and to climb to the heights of personal sanctity. The founders of the United States of America "permitted" the Catholic Church--and every single false religion--the free exercise of her religious duties. This indifference to revealed truth, however, far from being a "protection" to the life of Catholics, as Catholics steeped in the Americanist heresy believe so delusionally, is actually fatal to men and to societies as it gives the same "protection" to false religions and to irreligion itself, making it necessary for there to be the triumph of irreligion as the lowest common denominator in civil society.

Pope Gregory XVI explained in Mirari Vos, August 15, 1832, that "civil liberty" must lead to an abyss of corruption and decadence:

This shameful font of indifferentism gives rise to that absurd and erroneous proposition which claims that liberty of conscience must be maintained for everyone. It spreads ruin in sacred and civil affairs, though some repeat over and over again with the greatest impudence that some advantage accrues to religion from it. "But the death of the soul is worse than freedom of error," as Augustine was wont to say. When all restraints are removed by which men are kept on the narrow path of truth, their nature, which is already inclined to evil, propels them to ruin. Then truly "the bottomless pit" is open from which John saw smoke ascending which obscured the sun, and out of which locusts flew forth to devastate the earth. Thence comes transformation of minds, corruption of youths, contempt of sacred things and holy laws -- in other words, a pestilence more deadly to the state than any other. Experience shows, even from earliest times, that cities renowned for wealth, dominion, and glory perished as a result of this single evil, namely immoderate freedom of opinion, license of free speech, and desire for novelty.

Here We must include that harmful and never sufficiently denounced freedom to publish any writings whatever and disseminate them to the people, which some dare to demand and promote with so great a clamor. We are horrified to see what monstrous doctrines and prodigious errors are disseminated far and wide in countless books, pamphlets, and other writings which, though small in weight, are very great in malice. We are in tears at the abuse which proceeds from them over the face of the earth. Some are so carried away that they contentiously assert that the flock of errors arising from them is sufficiently compensated by the publication of some book which defends religion and truth. Every law condemns deliberately doing evil simply because there is some hope that good may result. Is there any sane man who would say poison ought to be distributed, sold publicly, stored, and even drunk because some antidote is available and those who use it may be snatched from death again and again?

 

Do you not see that Modernity's concept of "civil liberty," which is not tied to the proper exercise of free will in accord with the binding precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law as these have been entrusted to and explication by the infallible teaching authority of the Catholic Church, must degenerate into abject licentiousness? There is no turning back the march of evil by means merely naturalistic. One cannot expect to join forces with practical atheists, such as Buddhists, to stem the tide of secularism as Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI contended recently. God wants the world converted to the true Faith, which is one and only means by which individual men can know the truth about human existence, while seeking to eliminate false religions and their diabolical practices that help to give impetus to the evils spawned by naturalism from everywhere on the face of this earth.

Pope Pius IX, writing in Quanta Cura, December 8, 1864, reiterated the points made by Pope Gregory XVI in Mirari Vos, explaining the degradation to which the world must fall as a result of the insanity of "religious liberty," which was termed a heresy by Pope Pius VII in Post Tam Diuturnas, April 29, 1814:

And especially in our first Encyclical Letter written to you on Nov. 9, 1846, and in two Allocutions delivered by us in Consistory, the one on Dec. 9, 1854, and the other on June 9, 1862, we condemned the monstrous portents of opinion which prevail especially in this age, bringing with them the greatest loss of souls and detriment of civil society itself; which are grievously opposed also, not only to the Catholic Church and her salutary doctrine and venerable rights, but also to the eternal natural law engraven by God in all men's hearts, and to right reason; and from which almost all other errors have their origin.

But, although we have not omitted often to proscribe and reprobate the chief errors of this kind, yet the cause of the Catholic Church, and the salvation of souls entrusted to us by God, and the welfare of human society itself, altogether demand that we again stir up your pastoral solicitude to exterminate other evil opinions, which spring forth from the said errors as from a fountain. Which false and perverse opinions are on that ground the more to be detested, because they chiefly tend to this, that that salutary influence be impeded and (even) removed, which the Catholic Church, according to the institution and command of her Divine Author, should freely exercise even to the end of the world -- not only over private individuals, but over nations, peoples, and their sovereign princes; and (tend also) to take away that mutual fellowship and concord of counsels between Church and State which has ever proved itself propitious and salutary, both for religious and civil interests. For you well know, venerable brethren, that at this time men are found not a few who, applying to civil society the impious and absurd principle of "naturalism," as they call it, dare to teach that "the best constitution of public society and (also) civil progress altogether require that human society be conducted and governed without regard being had to religion any more than if it did not exist; or, at least, without any distinction being made between the true religion and false ones." And, against the doctrine of Scripture, of the Church, and of the Holy Fathers, they do not hesitate to assert that "that is the best condition of civil society, in which no duty is recognized, as attached to the civil power, of restraining by enacted penalties, offenders against the Catholic religion, except so far as public peace may require." From which totally false idea of social government they do not fear to foster that erroneous opinion, most fatal in its effects on the Catholic Church and the salvation of souls, called by Our Predecessor, Gregory XVI, an "insanity," viz., that "liberty of conscience and worship is each man's personal right, which ought to be legally proclaimed and asserted in every rightly constituted society; and that a right resides in the citizens to an absolute liberty, which should be restrained by no authority whether ecclesiastical or civil, whereby they may be able openly and publicly to manifest and declare any of their ideas whatever, either by word of mouth, by the press, or in any other way." But, while they rashly affirm this, they do not think and consider that they are preaching "liberty of perdition;" and that "if human arguments are always allowed free room for discussion, there will never be wanting men who will dare to resist truth, and to trust in the flowing speech of human wisdom; whereas we know, from the very teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ, how carefully Christian faith and wisdom should avoid this most injurious babbling."

And, since where religion has been removed from civil society, and the doctrine and authority of divine revelation repudiated, the genuine notion itself of justice and human right is darkened and lost, and the place of true justice and legitimate right is supplied by material force, thence it appears why it is that some, utterly neglecting and disregarding the surest principles of sound reason, dare to proclaim that "the people's will, manifested by what is called public opinion or in some other way, constitutes a supreme law, free from all divine and human control; and that in the political order accomplished facts, from the very circumstance that they are accomplished, have the force of right." But who, does not see and clearly perceive that human society, when set loose from the bonds of religion and true justice, can have, in truth, no other end than the purpose of obtaining and amassing wealth, and that (society under such circumstances) follows no other law in its actions, except the unchastened desire of ministering to its own pleasure and interests?

 

Pope Leo XIII noted in Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885, that practical atheism must triumph as the lowest common denominator for a civil society if the true religion is not recognized and men are permitted to believe that one religion is as "good" as another, explaining further that the civil state is acting against its very own interests when it permits the license of opinion and action to lead men astray from the truth and the practice of virtue:

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.

So, too, the liberty of thinking, and of publishing, whatsoever each one likes, without any hindrance, is not in itself an advantage over which society can wisely rejoice. On the contrary, it is the fountain-head and origin of many evils. Liberty is a power perfecting man, and hence should have truth and goodness for its object. But the character of goodness and truth cannot be changed at option. These remain ever one and the same, and are no less unchangeable than nature itself. If the mind assents to false opinions, and the will chooses and follows after what is wrong, neither can attain its native fullness, but both must fall from their native dignity into an abyss of corruption. Whatever, therefore, is opposed to virtue and truth may not rightly be brought temptingly before the eye of man, much less sanctioned by the favor and protection of the law. A well-spent life is the only way to heaven, whither all are bound, and on this account the State is acting against the laws and dictates of nature whenever it permits the license of opinion and of action to lead minds astray from truth and souls away from the practice of virtue. To exclude the Church, founded by God Himself, from the business of life, from the making of laws, from the education of youth, from domestic society is a grave and fatal error. A State from which religion is banished can never be well regulated; and already perhaps more than is desirable is known of the nature and tendency of the so-called civil philosophy of life and morals. The Church of Christ is the true and sole teacher of virtue and guardian of morals. She it is who preserves in their purity the principles from which duties flow, and, by setting forth most urgent reasons for virtuous life, bids us not only to turn away from wicked deeds, but even to curb all movements of the mind that are opposed to reason, even though they be not carried out in action.

 

Pope Saint Pius X quoted from this very passage of Pope Leo's Immortale Dei when writing in Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906, that the the thesis of the separation of Church and State is absolutely false (not a "good" as Ratzinger/Benedict contends) and that the civil state has an obligation to effect our return to God:

That the State must be separated from the Church is a thesis absolutely false, a most pernicious error. Based, as it is, on the principle that the State must not recognize any religious cult, it is in the first place guilty of a great injustice to God; for the Creator of man is also the Founder of human societies, and preserves their existence as He preserves our own. We owe Him, therefore, not only a private cult, but a public and social worship to honor Him. Besides, this thesis is an obvious negation of the supernatural order. It limits the action of the State to the pursuit of public prosperity during this life only, which is but the proximate object of political societies; and it occupies itself in no fashion (on the plea that this is foreign to it) with their ultimate object which is man's eternal happiness after this short life shall have run its course. But as the present order of things is temporary and subordinated to the conquest of man's supreme and absolute welfare, it follows that the civil power must not only place no obstacle in the way of this conquest, but must aid us in effecting it. The same thesis also upsets the order providentially established by God in the world, which demands a harmonious agreement between the two societies. Both of them, the civil and the religious society, although each exercises in its own sphere its authority over them. It follows necessarily that there are many things belonging to them in common in which both societies must have relations with one another. Remove the agreement between Church and State, and the result will be that from these common matters will spring the seeds of disputes which will become acute on both sides; it will become more difficult to see where the truth lies, and great confusion is certain to arise. Finally, this thesis inflicts great injury on society itself, for it cannot either prosper or last long when due place is not left for religion, which is the supreme rule and the sovereign mistress in all questions touching the rights and the duties of men. Hence the Roman Pontiffs have never ceased, as circumstances required, to refute and condemn the doctrine of the separation of Church and State. Our illustrious predecessor, Leo XIII, especially, has frequently and magnificently expounded Catholic teaching on the relations which should subsist between the two societies. "Between them," he says, "there must necessarily be a suitable union, which may not improperly be compared with that existing between body and soul.-"Quaedam intercedat necesse est ordinata colligatio (inter illas) quae quidem conjunctioni non immerito comparatur, per quam anima et corpus in homine copulantur." He proceeds: "Human societies cannot, without becoming criminal, act as if God did not exist or refuse to concern themselves with religion, as though it were something foreign to them, or of no purpose to them.... As for the Church, which has God Himself for its author, to exclude her from the active life of the nation, from the laws, the education of the young, the family, is to commit a great and pernicious error. -- "Civitates non possunt, citra scellus, gerere se tamquam si Deus omnino non esset, aut curam religionis velut alienam nihilque profuturam abjicere.... Ecclesiam vero, quam Deus ipse constituit, ab actione vitae excludere, a legibus, ab institutione adolescentium, a societate domestica, magnus et perniciousus est error."

 

Yes, I know that this quotations are familiar to readers of this site. I will go to my grave, however, reiterating these truths in order to remind my fellow Catholics that the specific manifestations of evil that are advancing by leaps and bounds at the present time are but the logical, inevitable and inexorable consequences of the systematic and planned overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King wrought by the Protestant Revolt and the rise of Judeo-Masonry and the scores upon scores of naturalistic ideologies and "philosophies" spawned thereby. We must keep our focus on root causes, ladies and gentlemen, as the "trees" that crop up now and again are but the symptoms of the larger sickness that Modernity has unleashed and with which the counterfeit church of conciliarism has made its Modernist "reconciliation."

To wit, the Governor of the State of New York, David Paterson, a Democrat, who succeeded the corrupt Elliot Spitzer two and one-half months ago now, has announced that he is directing state agencies in the Empire State to provide "reciprocity" to the "marriages" of those engaged in unrepentant and perverted acts against the Sixth and Ninth Commandments that have taken place in those states permitted such abominations. Paterson, a Catholic who supports baby-killing in all instances, both chemically and surgically, under cover of law, is, however, simply following the logic of his predecessor's predecessor, George Pataki, a Catholic Republic pro-abort who made it possible for the State of New York to provide "domestic partner" benefits to state employees, a continuation of the policies begun by his predecessor, the Catholic pro-abort Mario Matthew Cuomo, a Democrat. Democrat naturalists. Republican naturalists. What does it matter? Both have advanced the cause of evil.

The Catholics David Paterson and George Pataki and Mario Cuomo have had no regard for the binding nature of the Deposit of Faith. They proceed forth on the basis of naturalism and sentimentality, sometimes tinged with demagoguery and a sanctimonious self-righteousness about advancing the cause of "civil rights." Why should the following words of Pope Pius XI, contained in Casti Connubii, December 31, 1930, matter to them in the exercise of their temporal powers, either now, for Paterson, or in the past for Pataki and Cuomo?

When we consider the great excellence of chaste wedlock, Venerable Brethren, it appears all the more regrettable that particularly in our day we should witness this divine institution often scorned and on every side degraded.

For now, alas, not secretly nor under cover, but openly, with all sense of shame put aside, now by word again by writings, by theatrical productions of every kind, by romantic fiction, by amorous and frivolous novels, by cinematographs portraying in vivid scene, in addresses broadcast by radio telephony, in short by all the inventions of modern science, the sanctity of marriage is trampled upon and derided; divorce, adultery, all the basest vices either are extolled or at least are depicted in such colors as to appear to be free of all reproach and infamy. Books are not lacking which dare to pronounce themselves as scientific but which in truth are merely coated with a veneer of science in order that they may the more easily insinuate their ideas. The doctrines defended in these are offered for sale as the productions of modern genius, of that genius namely, which, anxious only for truth, is considered to have emancipated itself from all those old-fashioned and immature opinions of the ancients; and to the number of these antiquated opinions they relegate the traditional doctrine of Christian marriage.

These thoughts are instilled into men of every class, rich and poor, masters and workers, lettered and unlettered, married and single, the godly and godless, old and young, but for these last, as easiest prey, the worst snares are laid.

Not all the sponsors of these new doctrines are carried to the extremes of unbridled lust; there are those who, striving as it were to ride a middle course, believe nevertheless that something should be conceded in our times as regards certain precepts of the divine and natural law. But these likewise, more or less wittingly, are emissaries of the great enemy who is ever seeking to sow cockle among the wheat.[42] We, therefore, whom the Father has appointed over His field, We who are bound by Our most holy office to take care lest the good seed be choked by the weeds, believe it fitting to apply to Ourselves the most grave words of the Holy Ghost with which the Apostle Paul exhorted his beloved Timothy: "Be thou vigilant . . . Fulfill thy ministry . . . Preach the word, be instant in season, out of season, reprove, entreat, rebuke in all patience and doctrine."

And since, in order that the deceits of the enemy may be avoided, it is necessary first of all that they be laid bare; since much is to be gained by denouncing these fallacies for the sake of the unwary, even though We prefer not to name these iniquities "as becometh saints," yet for the welfare of souls We cannot remain altogether silent.

To begin at the very source of these evils, their basic principle lies in this, that matrimony is repeatedly declared to be not instituted by the Author of nature nor raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a true sacrament, but invented by man. Some confidently assert that they have found no evidence of the existence of matrimony in nature or in her laws, but regard it merely as the means of producing life and of gratifying in one way or another a vehement impulse; on the other hand, others recognize that certain beginnings or, as it were, seeds of true wedlock are found in the nature of man since, unless men were bound together by some form of permanent tie, the dignity of husband and wife or the natural end of propagating and rearing the offspring would not receive satisfactory provision. At the same time they maintain that in all beyond this germinal idea matrimony, through various concurrent causes, is invented solely by the mind of man, established solely by his will.

How grievously all these err and how shamelessly they leave the ways of honesty is already evident from what we have set forth here regarding the origin and nature of wedlock, its purposes and the good inherent in it. The evil of this teaching is plainly seen from the consequences which its advocates deduce from it, namely, that the laws, institutions and customs by which wedlock is governed, since they take their origin solely from the will of man, are subject entirely to him, hence can and must be founded, changed and abrogated according to human caprice and the shifting circumstances of human affairs; that the generative power which is grounded in nature itself is more sacred and has wider range than matrimony -- hence it may be exercised both outside as well as within the confines of wedlock, and though the purpose of matrimony be set aside, as though to suggest that the license of a base fornicating woman should enjoy the same rights as the chaste motherhood of a lawfully wedded wife.

Armed with these principles, some men go so far as to concoct new species of unions, suited, as they say, to the present temper of men and the times, which various new forms of matrimony they presume to label "temporary," "experimental," and "companionate." These offer all the indulgence of matrimony and its rights without, however, the indissoluble bond, and without offspring, unless later the parties alter their cohabitation into a matrimony in the full sense of the law.

Indeed there are some who desire and insist that these practices be legitimatized by the law or, at least, excused by their general acceptance among the people. They do not seem even to suspect that these proposals partake of nothing of the modern "culture" in which they glory so much, but are simply hateful abominations which beyond all question reduce our truly cultured nations to the barbarous standards of savage peoples.

And now, Venerable Brethren, we shall explain in detail the evils opposed to each of the benefits of matrimony. First consideration is due to the offspring, which many have the boldness to call the disagreeable burden of matrimony and which they say is to be carefully avoided by married people not through virtuous continence (which Christian law permits in matrimony when both parties consent) but by frustrating the marriage act. Some justify this criminal abuse on the ground that they are weary of children and wish to gratify their desires without their consequent burden. Others say that they cannot on the one hand remain continent nor on the other can they have children because of the difficulties whether on the part of the mother or on the part of family circumstances .

But no reason, however grave, may be put forward by which anything intrinsically against nature may become conformable to nature and morally good. Since, therefore, the conjugal act is destined primarily by nature for the begetting of children, those who in exercising it deliberately frustrate its natural power and purpose sin against nature and commit a deed which is shameful and intrinsically vicious.

Small wonder, therefore, if Holy Writ bears witness that the Divine Majesty regards with greatest detestation this horrible crime and at times has punished it with death. As St. Augustine notes, "Intercourse even with one's legitimate wife is unlawful and wicked where the conception of the offspring is prevented. Onan, the son of Juda, did this and the Lord killed him for it."

Since, therefore, openly departing from the uninterrupted Christian tradition some recently have judged it possible solemnly to declare another doctrine regarding this question, the Catholic Church, to whom God has entrusted the defense of the integrity and purity of morals, standing erect in the midst of the moral ruin which surrounds her, in order that she may preserve the chastity of the nuptial union from being defiled by this foul stain, raises her voice in token of her divine ambassadorship and through Our mouth proclaims anew: any use whatsoever of matrimony exercised in such a way that the act is deliberately frustrated in its natural power to generate life is an offense against the law of God and of nature, and those who indulge in such are branded with the guilt of a grave sin.

 

A world founded in a rejection of the Deposit of Faith as entrusted by the God-Man to the Catholic Church will be one in which all appeals to truth even on the level of the Natural Law will fall on utterly deaf ears. The Natural Law needs an interpreter. Men need Sanctifying Graces to obey the precepts of the Natural Law as they have been explicated by the Catholic Church. Men and their nations are lost without magisterial and maternal offices of the Catholic Church, as Pope Leo XIII pointed out in Tametsi Futura Prospicientibus, November 1, 1900:

God alone is Life. All other beings partake of life, but are not life. Christ, from all eternity and by His very nature, is "the Life," just as He is the Truth, because He is God of God. From Him, as from its most sacred source, all life pervades and ever will pervade creation. Whatever is, is by Him; whatever lives, lives by Him. For by the Word "all things were made; and without Him was made nothing that was made." This is true of the natural life; but, as We have sufficiently indicated above, we have a much higher and better life, won for us by Christ's mercy, that is to say, "the life of grace," whose happy consummation is "the life of glory," to which all our thoughts and actions ought to be directed. The whole object of Christian doctrine and morality is that "we being dead to sin, should live to justice" (I Peter ii., 24)-that is, to virtue and holiness. In this consists the moral life, with the certain hope of a happy eternity. This justice, in order to be advantageous to salvation, is nourished by Christian faith. "The just man liveth by faith" (Galatians iii., II). "Without faith it is impossible to please God" (Hebrews xi., 6). Consequently Jesus Christ, the creator and preserver of faith, also preserves and nourishes our moral life. This He does chiefly by the ministry of His Church. To Her, in His wise and merciful counsel, He has entrusted certain agencies which engender the supernatural life, protect it, and revive it if it should fail. This generative and conservative power of the virtues that make for salvation is therefore lost, whenever morality is dissociated from divine faith. A system of morality based exclusively on human reason robs man of his highest dignity and lowers him from the supernatural to the merely natural life. Not but that man is able by the right use of reason to know and to obey certain principles of the natural law. But though he should know them all and keep them inviolate through life-and even this is impossible without the aid of the grace of our Redeemer-still it is vain for anyone without faith to promise himself eternal salvation. "If anyone abide not in Me, he shall be cast forth as a branch, and shall wither, and they shall gather him up and cast him into the fire, and he burneth" john xv., 6). "He that believeth not shall be condemned" (Mark xvi., 16). 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.

So great is this struggle of the passions and so serious the dangers involved, that we must either anticipate ultimate ruin or seek for an efficient remedy. It is of course both right and necessary to punish malefactors, to educate the masses, and by legislation to prevent crime in every possible way: but all this is by no means sufficient. The salvation of the nations must be looked for higher. A power greater than human must be called in to teach men's hearts, awaken in them the sense of duty, and make them better. This is the power which once before saved the world from destruction when groaning under much more terrible evils. Once remove all impediments and allow the Christian spirit to revive and grow strong in a nation, and that nation will be healed. The strife between the classes and the masses will die away; mutual rights will be respected. If Christ be listened to, both rich and poor will do their duty. The former will realise that they must observe justice and charity, the latter self-restraint and moderation, if both are to be saved. Domestic life will be firmly established ( by the salutary fear of God as the Lawgiver. In the same way the precepts of the natural law, which dictates respect for lawful authority and obedience to the laws, will exercise their influence over the people. Seditions and conspiracies will cease. Wherever Christianity rules over all without let or hindrance there the order established by Divine Providence is preserved, and both security and prosperity are the happy result. The common welfare, then, urgently demands a return to Him from whom we should never have gone astray; to Him who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life,-and this on the part not only of individuals but of society as a whole. We must restore Christ to this His own rightful possession. All elements of the national life must be made to drink in the Life which proceedeth from Him- legislation, political institutions, education, marriage and family life, capital and labour. Everyone must see that the very growth of civilisation which is so ardently desired depends greatly upon this, since it is fed and grows not so much by material wealth and prosperity, as by the spiritual qualities of morality and virtue.

 

If we do not live for the honor and glory of God as He has revealed Himself to us exclusively through His Catholic Church, ladies and gentlemen, then we will fall prey to the wiles of the devil in our own lives and in the larger life of our nation. Evil must advance by leaps and bounds unless Catholicism is recognized by men and their nations as the only one and only foundation of personal and social order.

It is, of course, not only in the area of wanton perversity that evil is advancing in the United States of America and elsewhere in the world. Full-scale frontal attacks against the inviolability of innocent human life after birth, especially in instances of those who are disabled or are diagnosed, whether correctly or falsely, with a terminal illness, are on the march on an increasingly bold pace. Again, this is all too logical.

Why shouldn't there be efforts to dehumanize life after birth, especially in cases of the disabled and the retarded and the brain-damaged and the terminally or chronically ill, after over forty years of regular access to abortifacient contraceptives and after the thirty-five to forty-one period of liberalized access to surgical abortions under cover of law, starting in California, Colorado and Hawaii, New Jersey and New York in the years prior to the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States of America in Roe v. Wade, January 22, 1973? If there is no supreme, Divinely-instituted authority to remind men, whether acting individually in their own lives or collectively with others in the institutions of civil governance, then it is only logical and indeed inevitable that innocent human life will be devalued and dehumanized so as to permit its extinction in cases where it is alleged that such life is "burdensome" and "inconvenient."

Just consider some of the linguistic devices that have been used to dehumanize the preborn: "product of conception," "fetal matter," "unwanted fetus," "contents of the womb," "miscellaneous mass of cells, "potential life." Referring to a preborn baby as a child or as a baby? That would humanize the "product of conception," would it not.

Just consider some of the linguistic devices that are used to anesthetize the reality of chemical and surgical abortion: "termination of pregnancy," "reproductive rights," "a woman's right to choose," "women's health care," "elimination of the contents of the womb," "the procedure."

Just consider some of the eugenic reasons used to rationalize the killing of preborn children: "I don't want my child to enter a world where there are too many people." I want my child to have a quality of life that I can't give him." "My fetus has been diagnosed with Down's syndrome. I don't want to bring a child into the world who is going to suffer his entire life." "My fetus has been diagnosed with sickle cell anemia. It's better that we end the pregnancy rather than to force it to suffer so much." "I just don't have the money. The child will be too burdensome for me." "I don't to give up my education or my job or my career to have this baby."

A nation that is fed a steady dose of these linguistic devices is primed and ready to accept the use of similar devices to dehumanize the elderly and the infirmed and the chronically and terminally ill. As I noted back in the 1990s when Dr. Jack Kevorkian, "Doctor Death," was getting a lot of publicity for his "mercy killings," far more dangerous than Doctor Death are those men and women in white coats in hospitals and hospices who routinely dispatch human beings by various devices, including increasingly higher doses of Dilantin and potassium chloride and morphine. The same "profession" that gave us baby-killing, both by chemical and surgical means, under cover of law has given us, first in a de facto manner and now in a de jure manner in some states, the abject, direct, intentional killing of the infirmed and disabled and the chronically and terminally ill, using a variety of linguistic devices to anesthetize and/or justify the reality of these killings while at the same misrepresenting the true state of patients' health in order to expedite their deaths to take advantage of "living wills" and/or organ donation laws to harvest their bodies for "spare parts" before they are actually dead. (Please re-read Dr. Paul Byrne on Brain Death (From The Michael Fund Newsletter.)

It should come as no surprise, therefore, that the State of Texas is one of two states that gives physicians the right to starve and dehydrate patients to death within ten days of giving their relatives notice of their intention to do in order to provide them, the relatives, with the opportunity of moving their targeted loved one elsewhere:

Wednesday after the family alerted the Peruvian media and a pro-life Texas attorney intervened in the case.

According to Peruvian media reports, Jesus Sanchez, 56, had been in a coma for over five months in John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth, Texas, after suffering a heart attack after a soccer game. 

After the hospital's board of ethics reviewed his case, his condition was pronounced "irreversible".  The hospital announced that it would deprive Sanchez of food and fluids until he died, reported the Peruvian publication El Comercio.  His starvation and dehydration would begin within ten days if a transfer could not be arranged to another hospital.

However, according to Lucio Portilla of the Peruvian National Institute of Neurological Sciences, Sanchez was regaining consciousness, and was blinking and swallowing.  He told Radio Programs of Peru (RPP) that his hospital was "100%" certain of its willingness to receive Sanchez and care for him.

Although Sanchez and his two children were living in the United States legally, Sanchez had no access to Medicare, and his children had no way to pay for a medical evacuation to Peru, which could cost anywhere from $50,000 to $80,000.

"Since my father became ill I have had to work at night and abandon my pre-university studies.  My sister also works in a clothing factory.  Despite the effort we don't have the ability to save the $50,000 to rent an air ambulance to return my father to Peru," Jesus Sanchez told El Comercio.

After Sanchez´ wife and children made a desperate appeal through the Peruvian media only two days before the deadline for his removal, Peruvians responded generously and the family was surprised to receive $10,000 in a very short period of time.  It was not sufficient for the flight, however.

Family members contacted Texas Right to Life which referred them to pro-life attorney Bill Collins, who began negotiations with the hospital's attorney.  Two Catholic organizations and one Protestant organization also intervened in the case, according to media reports.

After heavy negative coverage in the Peruvian media, protests from Peruvians living in Texas, and the intervention of Collins and other Texas pro-lifers, John Peter Smith Hospital agreed to pay for the flight, which reportedly cost $80,000.

Adam Black, Political Director of Texas Right to Life told LifeSiteNews.com that the State of Texas is one of only two in the United States with a "10 day law" allowing patients to be euthanized through dehydration or starvation within ten days of notifying family members of their intention to do so.  If no transfer can be made to another hospital, the patient will die.

Black said that two patients have died under the terms of the law.  He also said that he is aware of several cases of patients who were transferred in time and survived despite their diagnoses, and are now living normal lives.

Family members told El Comercio that they thought that the real reason the hospital wanted to euthanize Sanchez was the price of his medical care, which was estimated at $3,000 a day.  Although Sanchez is a legal resident of the United States, his medical expenses are not covered by Medicaid.

"Here, there is no heart" one American attorney commented to RPP. "The problem is the cost." ( Foreigner Saved from Being Starved and Dehydrated to Death in Texas) 

 

The State Assembly of the State of California has passed legislation, which might not be passed by the State Senate or signed into law, that would make it easier to kill off the "burdensome" in that state:

By just two votes, the California State Assembly passed a bill yesterday that detractors say allows doctors to push patients toward medically assisted suicide.

The bill, AB 2747, enables doctors to provide a patient declared to have less than one year to live with a long list of end-of-life options, including a last-moments option that looks suspiciously like euthanasia.

Critics of the bill point to a provision that adds "palliative sedation" and VSED (voluntary stopping of eating and drinking) to a patient's end-of-life options, extreme measures that have been previously reserved for patients within a few hours to a few days of death.

If the bill becomes law, critics say, a doctor could pronounce a patient within a year of death, encourage him to consider complete (sometimes irreversible) sedation, then proceed with VSED until the patient, unconscious and unaware, is starved and dehydrated to death. In effect, the critics argue, this is physician-assisted suicide for anyone deemed "within a year of death."

Assembly member Patty Berg, who co-sponsored the bill, wrote in California's Capitol Weekly that AB 2747 merely "requires healthcare providers to give complete answers to their terminal patients."

The bill itself states that "lack of communication between health care providers and their terminally ill patients can cause problems" and that "those problems are complicated by social issues, such as cultural and religious pressures." Further, "a recent survey found that providers that object to certain practices are less likely than others to believe they have an obligation to present all of the options to patients and refer patients to other providers."

Randy Thomasson, president of Campaign for Children and Families, a California-based pro-life group, insists, however, "This deceptive bill will cause death and shorten life, despite its claims."

Thomasson sees an imminent danger that unscrupulous or cost-driven doctors might use the bill's provisions for communication as license to tell patients their death is coming within the year and move them toward life-ending choices.

"Some people are told they have a year to live," he points out, "then go on to live healthily for 12."

He also points out that in a state in which food and hydration are considered "extraordinary measures" in living wills, patients stunned by the news they have less than a year to live may opt for choices that lead directly to their death. Depressed or confused patients might agree to the sedation, then die through VSED.

"Drying up and shriveling to death through dehydration is a fate worse than lethal injection," says Thomasson. "By transforming palliative sedation into a vehicle for assisted suicide, AB 2747 would transform doctors and nurses from healers and comforters into killers."

The bill marks the fourth time in four years that Berg has attempted to pass legislation on end-of-life circumstances. Her previous attempts were more clearly euthanasia-related, including a bill last year that would have permitted death by lethal injection.

Berg insists AB 2747 is not of the same mold: "Unlike my previous end-of-life bill," she wrote, "my new bill doesn’t give anyone any new options. …Some, however, are still fighting last year’s battle and are trying to convince the gullible that my new bill is a Trojan horse, designed somehow to legalize aid-in-dying."

Thomassom sees the value Berg's places on "knowing all the options" as misguided.

"People who are ill need support, spiritual care and counseling," he says, not dire predictions of death and options for dying. "Just as the assisted-suicide bills of the last three years have been rejected, so should the California Legislature reject AB 2747. Assisted suicide by total sedation ignores the sanctity of human life and violates life-affirming medical ethics."

 

We should take the word of the doctors? Says who? Take the word of those who believe in the killing of babies in the womb and who do not fear the judgment of God on their immortal souls at the moment of their deaths? Take the word of those who use the same linguistic devices from Hell to dehumanize the elderly and the infirmed and the disabled and the chronically and terminally ill as they have done with the preborn? Take the diagnosis of these proven killers and liars uncritically and at face value? Says who?

This report, written by Miss Mary Therese Helmueller, R.N., in 1997 and published in Homiletic and Pastoral Review in January of 1998, might, leaving aside references to Giovanni Paolo Il Secondo Il Grande that are made in several places in the article, give you pause for reflection on taking the word of men and women who are committed to killing before birth and who engage in deceits of all kind before before and after birth:

 

In 1984, while working as charge nurse in the intensive care unit, a 20-year-old man asked, “Can you give my mother enough morphine to let her sleep away?” I was horrified. “I can not kill your mother,” I responded. That was only the beginning. Recently, an 80-year-old was admitted to the emergency room and the physician said, “LET’S DEHYDRATE HER”; one more patient was sentenced to die in hospice with NO TERMINAL DIAGNOSIS and once again, THE LIVING WILL determined the death of a 70-year-old man regardless of how he pleaded to live. I can no longer remain silent.

Your life may be in danger if you are admitted to a hospital, especially if you are over 65 or have a chronic illness or a disability. The elderly are frequently dying three days after being admitted to the hospital. Some attribute it to “old age syndrome” while others admit that overdosing is all too common. Euthanasia is not legal but it is being practiced. Last year the New England Journal of Medicine reported that 1 in 5 critical care nurses admit to having hastened the death of the terminally ill! I believe the percentage is much higher. I have worked with nurses who even admit to overdosing their parents. No one knows the exact euthanasia rate in the United States, however Dr. Dolan from the University of Minnesota states that 40 percent of all reported deaths is probably a conservative estimation. If this is true then the United States is executing euthanasia at a higher percentage rate than the Netherlands where it is also illegal but widely practiced.

Did you know that many doctors and nurses whom we trust are speaking openly about their desire to practice euthanasia? In fact they are even speaking about ending their OWN lives when they reach the age of 65 or BEFORE if diagnosed with an illness. Some even admit to stealing the drugs for their own lethal injection. Think about it. These are the same people who will determine the value of YOUR life. If they do not value their own, how can you expect them to value yours?

I am a registered nurse in the St. Paul/ Minneapolis area with 15 years experience in emergency and critical care. My knowledge of euthanasia not only comes from my experience working in the critical care units throughout the Twin Cities, but also comes from a personal tragedy and loss in 1995. This is my true story. My hope is that you will educate others and protect yourselves and loved ones.

On Monday, February 20th, my grandmother was admitted to a local Catholic hospital with a fracture above the left knee. She was alert and orientated upon admission but became unresponsive after 48 hours and was transferred to hospice on the fourth day and died upon arrival.

I was in Mexico City conducting a pilgrimage and unable to be at her side so there were many questions upon my return. The doctors could not tell me the cause of her death so I began to search for the answers and was fortunate to obtain the hospital chart. It then became very clear that my grandmother had been targeted for euthanasia!

Carefully tracing the events it was evident that my grandmother became lethargic and unresponsive after each pain medication. She would awaken between times saying “I don’t want to die, I want to live to see Johnny ordained”; “I want to see Greta walk.” Johnny was her grandson studying in Rome to be a priest and Greta was her new great-grandchild. Even though over-sedation is one of the most common problems with the elderly she was immediately diagnosed as having a stroke. When she became comatose a completely hopeless picture of recovery was portrayed by the nurses and doctors who reported that she had a stroke, was having seizures, going in and out of a coma, and was in renal failure.

The truth however can be found in the hospital chart which indicates that everything was normal! The CAT scan was negative for stroke or obstruction, the EEG states “no seizure activity” and all blood work was normal indicating that she was not in renal failure! How were we to know that the coma was drug induced and that all the tests were normal? Why would they lie?

Looking over the chart it is clear that obtaining a “no code” status was the next essential step in executing her death. This is an order denying medical intervention in emergency situations. The “no code” was aggressively sought by the medical profession from the moment of her admission but was not granted by my family until it appeared that she was dying and there was no hope. Minutes after obtaining the “no code” a lethal dose of Dilantin (an anti-seizure medication) was administered intravenously over an 18-hour period. It put her into a deeper coma, slowing the respiratory rate and compromising the cardiovascular system leading to severe hemodynamic instability. The following day she was transferred to hospice and died upon arrival. The death certificate reads “Death by natural causes.”

My grandmother had no terminal diagnosis but the hospice admitting record indicates two doctors signed their name stating that she was terminally ill and would die within six months. How was this determined? The first doctor, who was the director of hospice, never came to evaluate her or even read the chart. More interesting is the fact that the second doctor was on vacation and returned three days after her death! Obviously these signatures were not obtained before or even upon her admission to hospice. How can this be professionally, morally or even legally acceptable? Can anyone therefore be admitted to hospice to die? It certainly seems possible especially if sedated or unresponsive. In fact, this hospice has recently been under investigation for accepting hundreds of patients who had no terminal illness.

It could happen to you

How can this happen? A serious problem lies in the definition and interpretation of “terminal illness” which permits the inclusion of chronic illnesses and disabilities. Terminal illness is defined as “an incurable or irreversible illness which produces death within six months.” The fact is that many chronic illnesses such as diabetes and high blood pressure are incurable and irreversible and without medical treatment such as insulin and other medications these illnesses would also produce death within six months. Therefore, those with chronic illnesses or disabilities can be conveniently denied medical treatment and even food and water to make them terminal. Typically it is the elderly who arrive in the hospital that are at the greatest risk. But it could be ANYONE! Especially those whose life and suffering is viewed as useless and burdensome.

Difficult to believe? Well it was for our prolife lawyer until his mother-in-law was admitted to a hospital several months later for a stroke. She became “unresponsive” and “comatose” a few days after her admission. The neurologist wrote an order to transfer her to hospice refusing an I.V. and tube feeding stating “this is the most compassionate treatment.” Remembering my story, our lawyer requested the removal of all narcotics and demanded an I.V. and tube feeding. This infuriated the neurologist. He began to accuse the family of being uncompassionate and inhumane. To prove his point he began a neurological assessment on the patient. Just then she opened her eyes and pulling the physician’s neck tie, forced his face to hers and said very clearly “Give me some water!” It was obvious that she was awake, alert and orientated. He angrily cancelled the transfer to hospice and ordered a tube feeding and intravenous. Several weeks later she was discharged and was exercising on the treadmill! She escaped the death sentence. Unfortunately many others like my grandmother have not. A stroke does not make you terminal but not receiving food and water does!

A clear understanding and definition of euthanasia is essential for a correct and moral judgment. Unfortunately the meaning is being altered by those who hold society’s values and by those who seek financial gain. According to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and reaffirmed by Pope John Paul II in his encyclical letter Evangelium Vitae euthanasia is defined as “an action or omission which of itself and by intention causes death, with the purpose of eliminating all suffering

The killing in hospitals today is commonly referred to as “the exit treatment” and disguised by the word “compassion.” Many doctors and nurses honestly believe that this is the most compassionate treatment for the elderly, the chronic and terminally ill, especially those whose suffering is seen as hopeless, inconvenient and a waste of time or money. Those who hold this twisted and corrupted idea of compassion actually believe they are doing good because suffering has no value and materialism is their god. For instance, how often have we heard that Medicare and Medicaid are “running out?” “So why not relieve pain and lighten the financial burden of our families and society?”

As a result, many patients are intentionally oversedated and forced to die from dehydration, starvation or over medication. “Death by natural causes” will be officially documented on the death certificate. Did you know that this is the exact same proclamation on the death certificate of St. Maximillian Kolbe? Everyone knows however that he died from a lethal injection in Auschwitz concentration camp after many days of dehydration and starvation!

Pope John Paul II states clearly in his encyclical Evangelium Vitae: “Here we are faced with one of the more alarming symptoms of the ‘Culture of Death’ which is advancing above all in prosperous societies, marked by an attitude of excessive preoccupation with efficiency and which sees the growing number of elderly and disabled as intolerable and too burdensome.”

Many souls are being denied the opportunity to reconcile with God and family members because their death has been hastened or deliberately taken. This is a grave and moral injustice. Pope Pius XII in his Address to an International Group of Physicians on February 24, 1957 stated, “It is not right to deprive the dying person of consciousness without a serious reason.” Pope John Paul II confirmed this in Evangelium Vitae saying, “as they approach death people ought to be able to satisfy their moral and family duties, and above all they ought to be able to prepare in a fully conscious way for their definitive meeting with God.”

Recently the Carmelite Sisters shared this tragic story of a friend whose husband was euthanized. Her husband was diagnosed with terminal cancer but was not expected to die for several months to a year. He had been away from the Catholic Church and the sacraments. He also was estranged from his children. One day he complained of pain that was not relieved by medication. The wife spoke to the nurse who then called the doctor. When the doctor arrived he gave an injection through the intravenous line. The husband took three breaths and died! The wife screamed, “I did not ask you to kill my husband!” “We needed time to reconcile our marriage and family.” She continued to cry, “He needed time to reconcile with God and the Church!”

It is evident that euthanasia is being even more cleverly planned and executed. A very holy priest from St. Paul was called to the hospital by a nurse to administer the last sacraments to a hospice patient. When the priest arrived he was surprised to find the patient sitting up in the chair! He visited with the patient approximately a half hour then heard his confession and administered the last sacraments. Just before he left the room the patient jumped up in bed and the nurse administered an injection. Perplexed and concerned, the good priest called the hospital upon returning to the rectory. The patient had already expired!

There is a good and legitimate purpose for hospice units, but how can it ever be morally acceptable to transfer patients to a unit to die when they have NO TERMINAL ILLNESS? How can sedating a patient and refusing a tube feeding and intravenous be considered compassionate? Dehydration and starvation is not a painless death! Has this become the Auschwitz of today? A convenient and economically efficient place to dump the unwanted, imperfect, and burdensome of our society?

Would a “living will” prevent these tragic events? The living will makes you a clear and easy target to be euthanized. A “living will” has nothing to do with living. It is your death warrant. It actually gives permission to facilitate your death by denying medical treatment. Did you know that it was originally developed by Luis Kutner in 1967 for the Euthanasia Society of America? It is the most cost effective tool for hospitals, insurance companies, Medicare and Medicaid. Therefore, since 1990 it has been deceptively packaged and promoted as a patient’s right known as “the Patient Self-determination Act.” If cutting care for those patients who ask for it wasn’t so successful in saving money and controlling the budget, why then did it originate in the Senate Finance Committee and why was it supported by the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health? These are finance committees whose only interest is controlling the budget! It is obvious that the living will is all about saving money, not your life!

Many people fear the loss of control that comes with illness and hospitalization. Tragically, they are deceived in thinking that the “living will” protects them and restores this control in their lives. Nothing could be further from the truth. No one knows the exact condition in which they will be admitted to the hospital. The “living will” is written in very broad terms leaving it open to the interpretation of medical professionals and others who stand to benefit from your demise. Remember your best interests or your interpretation may not be theirs! Can you imagine writing general instructions or signing a legal contract for the care of your Mercedes Benz several years before any problem occurs? “Please do not give oil or gas”; “If in three days it can not be fixed stop everything and trash the car.” How absurd and ridiculous! It takes time to diagnose and treat even car problems! If we would not foolishly demand this for a car then how can we demand it for a human life which has an eternal value?

Recently, a 70-year-old was admitted through the emergency room in respiratory distress. He was placed on a ventilator and transported to the intensive care unit. He was awake, alert and orientated anxiously writing notes: “I don’t want to die”; “I changed my mind”; and “Please don’t take me off the machine.” He was very persistent and urgent with his pleading. I soon understood why! His family and physicians were meeting to discuss a serious problem. He had signed a “living will” declaring that he did not want “any extraordinary measures.” He was now viewed as “incapable” of making any decisions and they wanted to follow his wishes as stated in the legal document! Very convenient for those who do not want their inheritance spent on hospital costs and for those who do not want to be bothered with a “useless burden” to our society!

Today hospitals and health care facilities are required to ask patients if they have a living will or lose government funding! The question is proposed in such a way to create pressure on patients so that they think it is something good, desirable and necessary. “Do you know that you have a right in the state of Minnesota to possess a living will?” Please remember that the living will targets you for euthanasia by denying you medical treatment. Living wills kill; they do not protect you. Instead, I urge you to obtain a copy of “The Protective Medical Decisions Document” (PMDD) from the International Anti-Euthanasia Task Force, P.O. Box 756, Steubenville, Ohio 43952. Sign it and keep it among your records. Please get rid of your living will!

Can you or a loved one be targeted for euthanasia without a living will? The course of events and treatment in my grandmother’s short hospitalization are documented. She did not have a living will. Please know the following steps—it could save your loved one’s life.

1)    Oversedation causing lethargy and unresponsiveness. Difficulty or inability to awaken a patient.

Some patients, especially the elderly, are very sensitive to pain medications which are slowly metabolized by the liver. Toxic levels build quickly with very small doses commonly producing lethargy and unresponsiveness. Elderly patients require approximately 20% less of the normal adult doses.

2)    A hopeless picture of any recovery. The patient appears to be comatose and dying. The medical staff affirms this with overwhelming reports and statements.

3)    No code status also referred to as DNR/DNI (do not resuscitate/ do not intubate)—The consent is obtained from the family.
It is a request to deny a patient delivered emergency care in a life-threatening situation.

4)    Lethal doses of Dilantin or narcotics —(morphine)

This will hasten the death, shortening the hospital stay and expenses.

5)    Transfer to hospice without tube feeding or intravenous. Due to sedation and inability to eat or drink the patient will die of dehydration and starvation. (Life Matters: Are You Being Targeted for Euthanasia?).

 

Yes, of course, the preservation of physical life is not an ultimate end in and of itself. We must, however, see in the disabled and the infirmed the elderly and the chronically and terminally ill the very image of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, considering it to be our privilege to serve them, perhaps even for years on end, as we would serve Our Lord Himself. Those who are dependent upon others for their daily needs can thus serve as a source of grace for those who treat them with the genuine compassion as shown by Saint Camillus de Lellis to the incurables and the hopeless of his own day. We cannot, as mentioned above, live in a vacuum and think the "doctors know best." The "doctors" don't have the interests of Christ the King at heart, do they? Why should we take their word at face value, perhaps even going so far as to dismiss the efforts of believing Catholics to come to the rescue of people whose very humanity has been dehumanizied and thus targeted for execution because they are said to be "living corpses"?

This has application of course in the specific instances of the care of the disabled that have been in the news in recent years, including that of the late Mrs. Theresa Marie Schindler-Schiavo, whose death by a court-ordered dehydration and starvation will be the subject of another article on this site within the next few weeks after an ongoing and thorough review of its contents. It is vital to get our facts right and to quit relying upon the "word" of those who are committed to the killing off of human beings under various euphemisms and all too frequently under totally false pretenses.

Bishop Clemens von Galens of Munster, Germany, condemned the Nazi eugenics laws in 1939 and thereafter. His words speak to us prophetically today just as strongly as they did to his own people sixty-nine years ago:

It is a deeply moving event that we read of in the Gospel for today. Jesus weeps! The Son of God weeps! A man who weeps is suffering pain pain either of the body or of the heart. Jesus did not suffer in the body; and yet he wept. How great must have been the sorrow of soul, the heartfelt pain of this most courageous of men to make him weep! Why did he weep? He wept for Jerusalem, for God's holy city that was so dear to him, the capital of his people. He wept for its inhabitants, his fellow-countrymen, because they refused to recognise the only thing that could avert the judgment foreseen by his omniscience and determined in advance by his divine justice: “If thou hadst known . . . the things which belong unto thy peace!" Why do the inhabitants of Jerusalem not know it? Not long before Jesus had given voice to it: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem . . . how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not!" (Luke 13,34).

Ye would not. I, your King, your God, I would. But ye would not! How safe, how sheltered is the chicken under the hen's wing: she warms it, she feeds it, she defends it. In the same way I desired to protect you, to keep you, to defend you against any ill. I would, but ye would not!

That is why Jesus weeps: that is why that strong man weeps; that is why God weeps. For the folly, the injustice, the crime of not being willing . And for the evil to which that gives rise which his omniscience sees coming. which his justice must impose if man sets his unwillingness against God's commands, in  opposition to the admonitions of conscience, and all the loving invitations of the divine Friend, the best of Fathers: “If thou hadst known, in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! But then wouldst not!.: It is something terrible, something incredibly wrong and fatal. when man sets his will against God's will. I would) than wouldst not! It is therefore that Jesus weeps for Jerusalem.

Dearly beloved Christians! The joint pastoral letter of the German bishops, which was read in all Catholic churches in Germany on 26 June 1941, includes the following words.

“It is true that in Catholic ethics there are certain positive commandments which cease to be obligatory if their observance would be attended by unduly great difficulties; but there are also sacred obligations of conscience from which no one can release us; which we must carry out even if it should cost us our life. Never, under any circumstances, may a man, save in war or in legitimate self-defence, kill an innocent person.”

I had occasion on 6th July to add the followings comments on this passage in the joint pastoral letter:

“For some months we have been heating reports that inmates of establishments for the care of the mentally ill who have been ill for a long period and perhaps appear incurable have been forcibly removed from these establishments on orders from Berlin. Regularly the relatives receive soon afterwards an intimation that the patient is dead, that the patient's body has been cremated and that they can collect the ashes. There is a general suspicion, verging on certainty. that these numerous unexpected deaths of the mentally ill do not occur naturally but are intentionally brought about in accordance with the doctrine that it is legitimate to destroy a so-called “worthless life” ” in other words to kill innocent men and women, if it is thought that their lives are of no further value to the people and the state. A terrible doctrine which seeks to justify the murder of innocent people, which legitimises the violent killing of disabled persons who are no longer capable of work, of cripples, the incurably ill and the aged and infirm!”

I am reliably informed that in hospitals and homes in the province of Westphalia lists are being prepared of inmates who are classified as “unproductive members of the national community” and are to be removed from these establishments and shortly thereafter killed. The first party of patients left the mental hospital at Marienthal, near Munster, in the course of this week.

German men and women! Article 211 of the German Penal Code is still in force, in these terms: “Whoever kills a man of deliberate intent is guilty of murder and punishable with death”. No doubt in order to protect those who kill with intent these poor men and women, members of our families, from this punishment laid down by law, the patients who have been selected for killing are removed from their home area to some distant place. Some illness or other is then given as the cause of death. Since the body is immediately cremated, the relatives and the criminal police are unable to establish whether the patient had in fact been ill or what the cause of death actually was. I have been assured, however, that in the Ministry of the Interior and the office of the Chief Medical Officer, Dr Conti, no secret is made of the fact that indeed a large number of mentally ill persons in Germany have already been killed with intent and that this will continue.

Article 139 of the Penal Code provides that “anyone who has knowledge of an intention to commit a crime against the life of any person . . . and fails to inform the authorities or the person whose life is threatened in due time . . . commits a punishable offence”. When I learned of the intention to remove patients from Marienthal I reported the matter on 28th July to the State Prosecutor of Munster Provincial Court and to the Munster chief of police by registered letter, in the following terms:

“According to information I have received it is planned in the course of this week (the date has been mentioned as 31st July) to move a large number of inmates of the provincial hospital at Marienthal, classified as ‘unproductive members of the national community’, to the mental hospital at Eichberg, where, as is generally believed to have happened in the case of patients removed from other establishments, they are to be killed with intent. Since such action is not only contrary to the divine and the natural moral law but under article 211 of the German Penal Code ranks as murder and attracts the death penalty, I hereby report the matter in accordance with my obligation under article 139 of the Penal Code and request that steps should at once be taken to protect the patients concerned by proceedings against the authorities planning their removal and murder, and that I may be informed of the action taken".

I have received no information of any action by the State Prosecutor or the police.

I had already written on 26th July to the Westphalian provincial authorities, who are responsible for the running of the mental hospital and for the patients entrusted to them for care and for cure, protesting in the strongest terms. It had no effect. The first transport of the innocent victims under sentence of death has left Marienthal. And I am now told that 800 patients have already been removed from the hospital at Warstein.

We must expect, therefore, that the poor defenceless patients are, sooner or later, going to be killed. Why? Not because they have committed any offence justifying their death, not because, for example, they have attacked a nurse or attendant, who would be entitled in legitimate self-defence to meet violence with violence. In such a case the use of violence leading to death is permitted and may be called for, as it is in the case of killing an armed enemy.

No: these unfortunate patients are to die, not for some such reason as this but because in the judgment of some official body, on the decision of some committee, they have become “unworthy to live,” because they are classed as “unproductive members of the national community”.

The judgment is that they can no longer produce any goods: they are like an old piece of machinery which no longer works, like an old horse which has become incurably lame, like a cow which no longer gives any milk. What happens to an old piece of machinery? It is thrown on the scrap heap. What happens to a lame horse, an unproductive cow?

I will not pursue the comparison to the end, so fearful is its appropriateness and its illuminating power.

But we are not here concerned with pieces of machinery; we are not dealing with horses and cows, whose sole function is to serve mankind, to produce goods for mankind. They may be broken up; they may be slaughtered when they no longer perform this function.

No: We are concerned with men and women, our fellow creatures, our brothers and sisters! Poor human beings, ill human beings, they are unproductive, if you will. But does that mean that they have lost the right to live? Have you, have I, the right to live only so long as we are productive, so long as we are recognised by others as productive?

If the principle that men is entitled to kill his unproductive fellow-man is established and applied, then woe betide all of us when we become aged and infirm! If it is legitimate to kill unproductive members of the community, woe betide the disabled who have sacrificed their health or their limbs in the productive process! If unproductive men and women can be disposed of by violent means, woe betide our brave soldiers who return home with major disabilities as cripples, as invalids! If it is once admitted that men have the right to kill “unproductive” fellow-men even though it is at present applied only to poor and defenceless mentally ill patients ” then the way is open for the murder of all unproductive men and women: the incurably ill, the handicapped who are unable to work, those disabled in industry or war. The way is open, indeed, for the murder of all of us when we become old and infirm and therefore unproductive. Then it will require only a secret order to be issued that the procedure which has been tried and tested with the mentally ill should be extended to other “unproductive” persons, that it should also be applied to those suffering from incurable tuberculosis, the aged and infirm, persons disabled in industry, soldiers with disabling injuries!

Then no man will be safe: some committee or other will be able to put him on the list of “unproductive” persons, who in their judgment have become “unworthy to live”. And there will be no police to protect him, no court to avenge his murder and bring his murderers to justice.

Who could then have any confidence in a doctor? He might report a patient as unproductive and then be given instructions to kill him! It does not bear thinking of, the moral depravity, the universal mistrust which will spread even in the bosom of the family, if this terrible doctrine is tolerated, accepted and put into practice. Woe betide mankind, woe betide our German people, if the divine commandment, “Thou shalt not kill”, which the Lord proclaimed on Sinai amid thunder and lightning, which God our Creator wrote into man's conscience from the beginning, if this commandment is not merely violated but the violation is tolerated and remains unpunished!

I will give you an example of what is happening. One of the patients in Marienthal was a man of 55, a farmer from a country parish in the Munster region I could give you his name who has suffered for some years from mental disturbance and was therefore admitted to Marienthal hospital. He was not mentally ill in the full sense: he could receive visits and was always happy, when his relatives came to see him. Only a fortnight ago he was visited by his wife and one of his sons, a soldier on home leave from the front. The son is much attached to his father, and the parting was a sad one: no one can tell, whether the soldier will return and see his father again, since he may fall in battle for his country. The son, the soldier, will certainly never again see his father on earth, for he has since then been put on the list of the “unproductive”. A relative, who wanted to visit the father this week in Marienthal, was turned away with the information that the patient had been transferred elsewhere on the instructions of the Council of State for National Defence. No information could be given about where he had been sent, but the relatives would be informed within a few days. What information will they be given? The same as in other cases of the kind? That the man has died, that his body has been cremated, that the ashes will be handed over on payment of a fee? Then the soldier, risking his life in the field for his fellow-countrymen, will not see his father again on earth, because fellow-countrymen at home have killed him.

The facts I have stated are firmly established. I can give the names of the patient, his wife and his son the soldier, and the place where they live.

“Thou shalt not kill!” God wrote this commandment in the conscience of man long before any penal code laid down the penalty for murder, long before there was any prosecutor or any court to investigate and avenge a murder. Cain, who killed his brother Abel, was a murderer long before there were any states or any courts of law. And he confessed his deed, driven by his accusing conscience: “My punishment is greater than I can bear . . . and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me the murderer shall slay me” (Genesis 4,13-14).

“Thou shalt not kill!” This commandment from God, who alone has power to decide on life or death, was written in the hearts of men from the beginning, long before God gave the children of Israel on Mount Sinai his moral code in those lapidary sentences inscribed on stone which are recorded for us in Holy Scripture and which as children we learned by heart in the catechism.

“I am the Lord thy God!” Thus begins this immutable law. “Thou shalt have not other gods before me.” God ” the only God, transcendent, almighty, omniscient, infinitely holy and just, our Creator and future Judge ” has given us these commandments. Out of love for us he wrote these commandments in our heart and proclaimed them to us. For they meet the need of our God-created nature; they are the indispensable norms for all rational, godly, redeeming and holy individual and community life. With these commandments God, our Father, seeks to gather us, His children, as the hen gathers her chickens under her wings. If we follow these commands, these invitations, this call from God, then we shall be guarded and protected and preserved from harm, defended against threatening death and destruction like the chickens under the hen's wings.

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem . . . how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!” Is this to come about again in our country of Germany, in our province of Westphalia, in our city of Munster? How far are the divine commandments now obeyed in Germany, how far are they obeyed here in our community?

The eighth commandment: “Thou shalt not bear false witness, thou shalt not lie.” How often is it shamelessly and publicly broken!

The seventh commandment: “Thou shalt not steal”. Whose possessions are now secure since the arbitrary and ruthless confiscation of the property of our brothers and sisters, members of Catholic orders? Whose property is protected, if this illegally confiscated property is not returned?

The sixth commandment: “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” Think of the instructions and assurances on free sexual intercourse and unmarried motherhood in the notorious Open Letter by Rudolf Hess, who has disappeared since, which was published in all the newspapers. And how much shameless and disreputable conduct of this kind do we read about and observe and experience in our city of Munster! To what shamelessness in dress have our young people been forced to get accustomed to” the preparation for future adultery! For modesty, the bulwark of chastity, is about to be destroyed.

And now the fifth commandment: “Thou shalt not kill”, is set aside and broken under the eyes of the authorities whose function it should be to protect the rule of law and human life, when men presume to kill innocent fellow-men with intent merely because they are “unproductive”, because they can no longer produce any goods.

And how do matters stand with the observance of the fourth commandment, which enjoins us to honour and obey our parents and those in authority over us? The status and authority of parents is already much undermined and is increasingly shaken by all the obligations imposed on children against the will of their parents. Can anyone believe that sincere respect and conscientious obedience to the state authorities can be maintained when men continue to violate the commandments of the supreme authority, the Commandments of God, when they even combat and seek to stamp out faith in the only true transcendent God, the Lord of heaven and earth?

The observance of the first three commandments has in reality for many years been largely suspended among the public in Germany and in Munster. By how many people are Sundays and feast days profaned and withheld from the service of God! How the name of God is abused, dishonoured and blasphemed!

And the first commandment: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” In place of the only true eternal God men set up their own idols at will and worship them: Nature, or the state, or the people, or the race. And how many are there whose God, in Paul's word, “is their belly” (Philippians 3:19)” their own well being, to which they sacrifice all else, even honour and conscience ” the pleasures of the senses, the lust for money, the lust for power! In accordance with all this men may indeed seek to arrogate to themselves divine attributes, to make themselves lords over the life and death of their fellow-men.

When Jesus came near to Jerusalem and beheld the city he wept over it, saying: “If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. For the day shall come upon thee, that thine enemies . . . shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.” Looking with his bodily eyes, Jesus saw only the walls and towers of the city of Jerusalem, but the divine omniscience looked deeper and saw how matters stood within the city and its inhabitants:       “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem . . . how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings ” and ye would not!" That is the great sorrow that oppresses Jesus's heart, that brings tears to his eyes.   I wanted to act for your good, but ye would not!

Jesus saw how sinful, how terrible, how criminal, how disastrous this unwillingness is. Little man, that frail creature, sets his created will against the will of God! Jerusalem and its inhabitants, His chosen and favoured people, set their will against God's will! Foolishly and criminally, they defy the will of God! And so Jesus weeps over the heinous sin and the inevitable punishment. God is not mocked!

Christians of Munster! Did the Son of God in his omniscience in that day see only Jerusalem and its people? Did he weep only over Jerusalem? Is the people of Israel the only people whom God has encompassed and protected with a father's care and mother's love, has drawn to Himself? Is it the only people that wou1d not ? The only one that rejected God's truth, that threw off God's law and so condemned itself to ruin?

Did Jesus, the omniscient God, also see in that day our German people, our land of Westphalia, our region of Munster, the Lower Rhineland? Did he also weep over us? Over Munster?

For a thousand years he has instructed our forefathers and us in his truth, guided us with his law, nourished us with his grace, gathered us together as the hen gathers her chickens under her wings. Did the omniscient Son of God see in that day that in our time he must also pronounce this judgment on us: “Ye would not: see, your house will be laid waste!” How terrible that would be!

My Christians! I hope there is still time; but then indeed it is high time: That we may realise, in this our day, the things that belong unto our peace! That we may realise what alone can save us, can preserve us from the divine judgment: that we should take, without reservation, the divine commandments as the guiding rule of our lives and act in sober earnest according to the words: “Rather die than sin”.

That in prayer and sincere penitence we should beg that God's forgiveness and mercy may descend upon us, upon our city, our country and our beloved German people.

But with those who continue to provoke God's judgment, who blaspheme our faith, who scorn God's commandments, who make common cause with those who alienate our young people from Christianity, who rob and banish our religious, who bring about the death of innocent men and women, our brothers and sisters with all those we will avoid any confidential relationship, we will keep ourselves and our families out of reach of their influence, lest we become infected with their godless ways of thinking and acting, lest we become partakers in their guilt and thus liable to the judgment which a just God must and will inflict on all those who, like the ungrateful city of Jerusalem, do not will what God wills.

O God, make us all know, in this our day, before it is too late, the things which belong to our peace!

O most Sacred Heart of Jesus, grieved to tears at the blindness and iniquities of men, help us through Thy grace, that we may always strive after that which is pleasing to Thee and renounce that which displeases Thee, that we may remain in Thy love and find peace for our souls!

Amen.

 

Anyone who does not think that the situation in Nazi Germany that was described so clearly and condemned so forcefully by the late Bishop Clemens von Galens in 1941 obtains in the United States of America and elsewhere in the world at the present time is as spiritually blind as David Paterson, the Governor of the State of New York. We are living through the precise situation now as that described and condemned by Bishop Clemens von Galens. Please do yourself a favor and re-read the late bishop's remarks again. Yes, I have included these remarks before, at the end of the interview on brain death that Dr. Paul Byrne gave to Mrs. Randy Engel. It is important to do so again as Bishop von Galens's remarks resonate with Catholic truth and serve as prophetic warnings to us not to trust in the diagnoses and judgments of doctors who have accustomed themselves to lying and killing.

Bishop von Galens's sermon from the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost in 1941 also discussed the cogent point that it is easier for men to break the Fourth through Tenth Commandments under cover of law when they have violated the First through Third Commandments. Consider this passage once again:

And the first commandment: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” In place of the only true eternal God men set up their own idols at will and worship them: Nature, or the state, or the people, or the race. And how many are there whose God, in Paul's word, “is their belly” (Philippians 3:19)” their own well being, to which they sacrifice all else, even honour and conscience ” the pleasures of the senses, the lust for money, the lust for power! In accordance with all this men may indeed seek to arrogate to themselves divine attributes, to make themselves lords over the life and death of their fellow-men.

 

Although admitting, of course, that the proximate causes for the astounding advances in evil that we have seen before our very eyes in the past fifty years is the result of the overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King and the contempt that this has bred for His Deposit of Faith and the authority of His true Church, it is nevertheless also true that the astounding advances in evil that we have seen before our very eyes in the past fifty years have resulted at least in part as the result of a chastisement that God is permitting us to endure as a punishment for our failure to seek to restore all things in Him. How can we stop the advance of evil on the devil's own terms of naturalism, no less think and speak naturalistically about the state of disabled, dependent human beings?

Moreover, it is not unreasonable at all to consider that this advance of evil has been made more possible by the fact that the conciliar "pontiffs" have dared to arouse the wrath of God by having "other gods" before them. All of the conciliar "popes"" opposition to the evils of the day, including abortion and euthanasia, come to nothing because they continue to offend God by giving respect publicly to false religions, failing to recognize that as serious as abortion and euthanasia and other crimes are as sins that cry out to Heaven for vengeance they are ultimately lower on the scale of the hierarchy of evil than violations of the first three Commandments, especially violations of the First Commandment by the respect shown publicly to false religions. "Nature, or the state, or the people, or the race" must therefore triumph as God is so blasphemed and mocked, resulting in the degradation of the inviolability of innocent human life. After all, it is a pretty easy thing to kill off innocent beings by dehumanizing them when one grows accustomed to offending God by having a steady diet of "other gods" before one. God will not let such offenses go unpunished.

Today is the Feast of the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary, she who gave birth to the Author of Life Himself, enfleshing Him in her Virginal and Immaculate Womb by the power of God the Holy Ghost the Annunciation. She is the Queen of Heaven and of Earth. Imagine what the world would like if men took her Fatima Message seriously and made reparation for their sins by offering to the Most Sacred Heart of her Divine Son, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, all of their prayers and sufferings and calumniations and mortifications and penances? Imagine what the world would look like if civil leaders understood that no earthly queen ever suffered as Our Lady did at the foot of her Divine Son's Most Holy Cross and gave her the public honor that is her due as the Queen of Martyrs? Imagine what the world would look like if we turned to her, especially by means of her Most Holy Rosary, in the midst of social evils and prayed for our own conversion and those of our fellow citizens and of our nations to the Catholic Faith and thus to the Social Reign of Christ the King?

The devil knows what such a world would look like, which is why he works hard to prevent it from being realized, endeavoring with his minions to keep us stuck in the quicksand of naturalism, believing in every 'strategy" other than that which has been given to us by the Mother of God herself in the Cova da Iria ninety-one years ago.

We must never lose heart in this time of apostasy and betrayal even though things are getting worse and worse before our very eyes. When you look at the world through the eyes of the true Faith, however, one can see that things in the world are actually getting better and better and better as God in His Holy Providence is giving us an opportunity to defend the true Faith no matter what it might cost us, including our very lives, which is why we had better make sure to cling to true shepherds in the catacombs where no concessions whatsoever are made to conciliarism and its ethos of a reconciliation with the world of religious liberty and separation of Church and State that has frustrated its leaders' efforts to oppose evil that can only bear fruit if the unconditional conversion of all men and all nations to the Catholic Faith is sought with urgency and with a firm, public reliance on the Queen of the Most Holy Rosary, the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?

Vivat Christus Rex! Viva Cristo Rey!

Our Lady of Fatima, 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 Petronilla, pray for us.

See also: A Litany of Saints