Suiting Disorder Quite Consistently
by
Thomas A. Droleskey
Facts
One of the many things that unite "conservatives" in the naturalistic preserve that is electoral politics in the religiously-indifferentist civil state of Modernity and "conservatives" who serve as apologists for the apostasies and blasphemies and sacrileges and novelties of the counterfeit church of conciliarism (many of whom are, obviously, the exact same people) is their uncanny ability to ignore and/or attempt to explain away one undeniable and incontrovertible fact after another that proves the errors of their ways, preferring to live in a fantasy-land that sustains their delusions.
To wit, I have yet to read a commentary written by a "conservative" conciliarist, people who were termed "neo-Catholics" some years ago by some in the resist and recognize camp, that has condemned Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's entering into Talmudic synagogues (in Cologne, Germany, on April 19, 2005, and New York City on April 18, 2008) and one Mohammedan mosque (in Istanbul, Turkey, on November 30, 2006):
Benedict XVI venerating the Jewish sacred books
Benedict visits the synagogue of New York
Benedict at the mosque
"Conservatives" attached to the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism have yet to recognize these acts as, objectively speaking, grievous violations of the First Commandment, communicating to Catholics and non-Catholics that God is not offended by the worship of false religions, worship that is condemned by Psalm 95:5 and by the consistent teaching of the Catholic Church as follows:
For all the gods of the Gentiles are devils: but the Lord made the heavens. (Psalm 95: 5)
Lastly, the beloved disciple St. John renews the same command in the strongest terms, and adds another reason, which regards all without exception, and especially those who are best instructed in their duty: "Look to yourselves", says he, "that ye lose not the things that ye have wrought, but that you may receive a full reward. Whosoever revolteth, and continueth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that continueth in the doctrine the same hath both the Father and the Son. If any man come to you and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, nor say to him, God speed you: for he that saith to him, God speed you, communicateth with his wicked works". (2 John, ver. 8)
Here, then, it is manifest, that all fellowship with those who have not the doctrine of Jesus Christ, which is "a communication in their evil works" — that is, in their false tenets, or worship, or in any act of religion — is strictly forbidden, under pain of losing the "things we have wrought, the reward of our labors, the salvation of our souls". And if this holy apostle declares that the very saying God speed to such people is a communication with their wicked works, what would he have said of going to their places of worship, of hearing their sermons, joining in their prayers, or the like?
From this passage the learned translators of the Rheims New Testament, in their note, justly observe, "That, in matters of religion, in praying, hearing their sermons, presence at their service, partaking of their sacraments, and all other communicating with them in spiritual things, it is a great and damnable sin to deal with them." And if this be the case with all in general, how much more with those who are well instructed and better versed in their religion than others? For their doing any of these things must be a much greater crime than in ignorant people, because they know their duty better. (Bishop George Hay, The Laws of God Forbidding All Communication in Religion With Those of a False Religion.)
The spirit of Christ, which dictated the Holy Scriptures, and the spirit which animates and guides the Church of Christ, and teaches her all truth, is the same; and therefore in all ages her conduct on this point has been uniformly the same as what the Holy Scripture teaches. She has constantly forbidden her children to hold any communication, in religious matters, with those who are separated from her communion; and this she has sometimes done under the most severe penalties. In the apostolical canons, which are of very ancient standing, and for the most part handed down from the apostolical age, it is thus decreed: "If any bishop, or priest, or deacon, shall join in prayers with heretics, let him be suspended from Communion". (Can. 44)
Also, "If any clergyman or laic shall go into the synagogue of the Jews, or the meetings of heretics, to join in prayer with them, let him be deposed, and deprived of communion". (Can. 63) (Bishop George Hay, (The Laws of God Forbidding All Communication in Religion With Those of a False Religion.)
It is important to reiterate one of the passages above as it relates directly to the behavior of the conciliar "pontiffs," including Ratzinger/Benedict, as they, who are supposed to know better than others, have actually led the way in scandalizing and misleading the faithful by their actions that communicate a blithe acceptance of religious indifferentism, all of their protestations to the contrary notwithstanding:
From this passage the learned translators of the Rheims New Testament, in their note, justly observe, "That, in matters of religion, in praying, hearing their sermons, presence at their service, partaking of their sacraments, and all other communicating with them in spiritual things, it is a great and damnable sin to deal with them." And if this be the case with all in general, how much more with those who are well instructed and better versed in their religion than others? For their doing any of these things must be a much greater crime than in ignorant people, because they know their duty better. (Bishop George Hay, The Laws of God Forbidding All Communication in Religion With Those of a False Religion.)
Similarly, no "conservative" Catholic yet attached to the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism has defended the honor and glory and the majesty of God by denouncing Ratzinger/Benedict's reference to Mount Hiei in Japan, where the Tendei sect of the diabolical religion known as Buddhism worships their devils, as "sacred," making a mockery of the Catholic Church consistent denunciation of the false idols of the pagan:
I am glad to greet you and all the religious leaders gathered on the occasion of the Twentieth Anniversary of the Religious Summit Meeting on Mount Hiei. I wish also to convey my best wishes to Venerable Eshin Watanabe, and to recall your distinguished predecessor as Supreme Head of the Tendai Buddhist Denomination, Venerable Etai Yamada. It was he who, having participated in the Day of Prayer for Peace in Assisi on that memorable day of 27 October 1986, initiated the “Religious Summit Meeting” on Mount Hiei in Kyoto in order to keep the flame of the spirit of Assisi burning. I am also happy that Cardinal Paul Poupard, President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, is able to take part in this meeting.
From the supernatural perspective we come to understand that peace is both a gift from God and an obligation for every individual. Indeed the world’s cry for peace, echoed by families and communities throughout the globe, is at once both a prayer to God and an appeal to every brother and sister of our human family. As you assemble on the sacred Mount Hiei, representing different religions, I assure you of my spiritual closeness. May your prayers and cooperation fill you with God’s peace and strengthen your resolve to witness to the reason of peace which overcomes the irrationality of violence!
Upon you all I invoke an abundance of divine blessings of inspiration, harmony and joy.” Benedict XVI sends message to interreligious meeting in Japan
But while things started very favorably, as We said, and yielded rich and salutary results, promising still greater in the future, Our saint with the greatest grief of soul, saw a storm breaking over the growing harvest, which an envious spirit had provoked and desires of earthly gain had stirred up. Since Benedict was prompted by divine and not human counsel, and feared lest the envy which had been aroused mainly against himself should wrongfully recoil on his followers, "he let envy take its course, and after he had disposed of the oratories and other buildings -- leaving in them a competent number of brethren with superiors -- he took with him a few monks and went to another place". Trusting in God and relying on His ever present help, he went south and arrived at a fort "called Cassino situated on the side of a high mountain . . .; on this stood an old temple where Apollo was worshipped by the foolish country people, according to the custom of the ancient heathens. Around it likewise grew groves, in which even till that time the mad multitude of infidels used to offer their idolatrous sacrifices. The man of God coming to that place broke the idol, overthrew the altar, burned the groves, and of the temple of Apollo made a chapel of St. Martin. Where the profane altar had stood he built a chapel of St. John; and by continual preaching he converted many of the people thereabout". (Pope Pius XII, writing in Fulgens Radiatur, March 21, 1947, about Saint Benedict of Nursia's destruction of the temple of false idols, quite a contrast with the words and actions of Joseph Ratzinger as "Benedict XVI.")
"Conservative" (and their former critics in the recognize and resist camp who have become their latter day allies since the issuance of Summorum Pontificum, July 7, 2007) apologists for the apostasies and blasphemies and sacrileges of the lords of the counterfeit church of conciliarism must either close their eyes as to how the conciliarists' words and actions have been condemned by the authority of the Catholic Church or they must attempt to justify these words and actions by attempting to mimic Ratzinger/Benedict's deconstruction of the nature of dogmatic truth, claiming that the declarations of the dogmatic councils of the Catholic Church and of her true popes prior to the death of Pope Pius XII, each of which were guided infallibly by the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, were "conditioned" by the historical circumstances in which they were made and thus subject to reexamination, if not outright rejection, a false belief condemned by the [First] Vatican Council:
Hence, that meaning of the sacred dogmata is ever to be maintained which has once been declared by Holy Mother Church, and there must never be an abandonment of this sense under the pretext or in the name of a more profound understanding.... If anyone says that it is possible that at some given time, given the advancement of knowledge, a sense may be assigned to the dogmata propounded by the Church which is different from that which the Church has always understood and understands: let him be anathema. [Vatican Council, 1870.]
Fourthly, I sincerely hold that the doctrine of faith was handed down to us from the apostles through the orthodox Fathers in exactly the same meaning and always in the same purport. Therefore, I entirely reject the heretical' misrepresentation that dogmas evolve and change from one meaning to another different from the one which the Church held previously. . . .
Finally, I declare that I am completely opposed to the error of the modernists who hold that there is nothing divine in sacred tradition; or what is far worse, say that there is, but in a pantheistic sense, with the result that there would remain nothing but this plain simple fact-one to be put on a par with the ordinary facts of history-the fact, namely, that a group of men by their own labor, skill, and talent have continued through subsequent ages a school begun by Christ and his apostles. I firmly hold, then, and shall hold to my dying breath the belief of the Fathers in the charism of truth, which certainly is, was, and always will be in the succession of the episcopacy from the apostles. The purpose of this is, then, not that dogma may be tailored according to what seems better and more suited to the culture of each age; rather, that the absolute and immutable truth preached by the apostles from the beginning may never be believed to be different, may never be understood in any other way.
I promise that I shall keep all these articles faithfully, entirely, and sincerely, and guard them inviolate, in no way deviating from them in teaching or in any way in word or in writing. Thus I promise, this I swear, so help me God. (Pope Saint Pius X, The Oath Against Modernism, September 1, 1910.)
Those who refuse to defend the honor and glory and majesty of God against the apostasies, blasphemies and sacrileges of the lords of the counterfeit church of conciliarism, preferring to live in a fantasy world of their own irresponsible choosing, must reckon with these words of Pope Saint Leo the Great that I have quoted on this site very frequently:
But it is vain for them to adopt the name of catholic, as they do not oppose these blasphemies: they must believe them, if they can listen so patiently to such words. (Pope Saint Leo the Great, Epistle XIV, To Anastasius, Bishop of Thessalonica, St. Leo the Great | Letters 1-59 )
Facts. Facts are quite inconvenient for those who do not want to face reality.
This is, as mentioned at the beginning of this commentary, as applicable to "conservatives" in the political realm as it is to those who adhere to the mythology that the counterfeit church of conciliarism is the Catholic Church, which, of course, it is not.
"Conservatives" in the realm of the naturalist farce that is electoral politics in the United States of America live in the midst of their own mythologies, including their continued exaltation of the men who had
a founding hatred for Christ the King.
Two of the more enduring myths propagated by naturalists of the "conservative" variety involve the nominations of Sandra Day O'Connor and David H. Souter by Republican "pro-life" presidents, Ronald Wilson Reagan and George Herbert Walker Bush, respectively, to serve as Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States of America. Many naturalists of the "conservative" variety continue to repeat the lie that Reagan and Bush the elder were "blind sided" by the subsequent "liberalism" displayed by their appointees, O'Connor and Souter. Such mythology is irresponsible as it flies in the face of well-documented facts that have been repeated over and over again in the past twenty-eight years.
Howard Phillips, the founder and chairman of the Conservative Caucus Foundation, gave testimony before the Judiciary Committee of the United States Senate against both the O'Connor and Souter nominations, as he explained in an interview. Although I disagree with Mr. Phillips's support for the philosophy of the founders of the United States of America, his work exposing the fraudulent nature of various "pro-life" Republican administrations is admirable and stands of its well-documented merits:
Let me put this into context. People say you can't tell how a Supreme Court nominee will turn out once on the bench. I respectfully disagree. In most cases, it'' very clear. I opposed the nomination of Sandra Day O'Connor because it was very clear that she had a pro-abortion record in the Arizona state senate and as a judge in Arizona. She was also allied with Planned Parenthood. I opposed David Souter because I read his senior thesis at Harvard in which he said he was a legal positivist and one of his heroes was Oliver Wendell Holmes and that he rejected all higher law theories, such as those spelled out in our Declaration of Independence. In addition, he was a trustee of two hospitals: Dartmouth Hitchcock and Concord Memorial. He successfully changed the policy of those two hospitals from 'zero abortion' to 'convenience abortion.' I testified against Ruth Bader Ginsburg because her record was clear. She saw the Supreme Court as a Supreme Legislature. She was on the far Left of virtually every issue. Yet, only three members of the U.S. Senate voted in opposition to her confirmation. Only eight voted in opposition to Breyer. With respect to Judge Roberts, I'm in the midst of an extensive and intensive study of his record. Several things become clear, although I'm not ready to reach a final conclusion. It is clear that while he claims to have no overarching judicial philosophy he does have a point of view on most of the big issues. But that point of view is overshadowed by his pragmatism and his desire to stay within what is perceived as the mainstream. (Flynn Files - Howard Phillips Interview Part I
Here is a brief excerpt from Mr. Phillips's actual testimony against Ronald Wilson Reagan's nomination of Sandra Day O'Connor in 1981:
As an Arizona State Senator, she voted twice for abortion on demand through the ninth month of pregnancy; she co-sponsored a proposal to permit abortion without parental consent; she promoted ERA; she opposed the Human Life Amendment; and she failed to oppose abortions at a taxpayer-funded facility." (The Supreme Court Watch - A Public Service of The Conservative Caucus.)
Judie Brown, the founder and President of the American Life League, similarly testified against Sandra Day O'Connor's nomination in 1981, also documenting O'Connor's solid pro-abortion record as the majority leader of the Arizona State Senate. Anyone who claims that they were "surprised" by O'Connor's opinions, summarized below by a pro-abortion organization, is dealing in a world of fanciful delusions. Howard Phillips and Judie Brown documented Sandra Day O'Connor's pro-abortion record openly and publicly. The documentation provided by Mr. Phillips and Mrs. Brown meant nothing to Ronald Wilson Reagan or Attorney General William French Smith or to the "pro-life" Republican senators on the Judiciary Committee or in the rest of the United States Senate.
Here is that summary of O'Connor's pro-abortion record a found on a pro-abortion website:
Justice Sandra O'Connor has played a very influential role on the Supreme Court on the issue of abortion. In both Planned Parenthood v. Casey and Stenberg v. Carhart (Carhart I), O'Connor's single vote in support of a woman's right to choose ensured the survival of Roe v. Wade.
Justice O'Connor, with Justices Kennedy and Souter, wrote the controlling plurality opinion in Casey which upheld a woman's right to a safe and legal abortion in a case many feared would overturn Roe v. Wade:
"After considering the fundamental constitutional questions resolved by Roe, principles of institutional integrity, and the rule of stare decisis, we are led to conclude this: the essential holding of Roe v. Wade should be retained and once again reaffirmed."
"Some of us as individuals find abortion offensive to our most basic principles of morality, but that cannot control our decision. Our obligation is to define the liberty of all, not to mandate our own moral code."
While Justice O'Connor's opinions have changed in the way abortion cases are analyzed, lowering the standard of review from strict scrutiny to an undue burden analysis, she has prevented the conservative members of the Supreme Court from destroying the central provisions of Roe.
In Stenberg v.Carhart (Carhart I), the Court's most recent decision concerning abortion rights, Justice O'Connor joined Justice Breyer's majority opinion affirming Roe and Casey:
"...[t]his Court, in the course of a generation, has determined and then redetermined that the Constitution offers basic protection to the woman's right to choose. We shall not revisit those legal principles."
In Hill v. Colorado, Justice O'Connor voted uphold Colorado's law creating a buffer zone around health facilities. Inside the 100-foot buffer zone, a patient cannot be approached within eight feet without consent for the purpose of leafleting, displaying a sign, or engaging in conversation. (National Abortion Federation: O'Connor's Legacy.)
Three Republican appointees to the Supreme Court of the United States of America wrote the following opinion in the case of Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Robert Casey, in support of the essential findings of the Court in the case of Roe v. Wade.
Although Roe has engendered opposition, it has in no sense proven unworkable, representing as it does a simple limitation beyond which a state law is unenforceable. P. 835.
(e) The Roe rule's limitation on state power could not be repudiated without serious inequity to people who, for two decades of economic and social developments, have organized intimate relationships and made choices that define their views of themselves and their places in society, in reliance on the availability of abortion in the event that contraception should fail. The ability of women to participate equally in the economic and social life of the Nation has been facilitated by their ability to control their reproductive lives. The Constitution serves human values, and while the effect of reliance on Roe cannot be exactly measured, neither can the certain costs of overruling Roe for people who have ordered their thinking and living around that case be dismissed. Pp. 855-856.
(f) No evolution of legal principle has left Roe's central rule a doctrinal anachronism discounted by society. If Roe is placed among the cases exemplified by Griswold, supra, it is clearly in no jeopardy, since subsequent constitutional developments have neither disturbed, nor do they threaten to diminish, the liberty recognized in such cases. Similarly, if Roe is seen as stating a rule of personal autonomy and bodily integrity, akin to cases recognizing limits on governmental power to mandate medical treatment or to bar its rejection, this Court's post-Roe decisions accord with Roe's view that a State's interest in the protection of life falls short of justifying any plenary override of individual liberty claims. See, e.g., Cruzan v. Director, M. Dept. of Health, 497 U.S. 261, 278 . Finally, if Roe is classified as sui generis, there clearly has been no erosion of its central determination. It was expressly reaffirmed in Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, Inc., 462 U.S. 416 (Akron I), and Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 476 U.S. 747 ; and, in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, 492 U.S. 490 , a majority either voted to reaffirm or declined to address the constitutional validity of Roe's central holding. Pp. 857-859. (Text of Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey.)
Those three Republican appointees to the Supreme Court of the United States of America who wrote that baby-killing under cover of law must be protected because people "have organized intimate relationships and made choices that define their views of themselves and their places in society, in reliance on the availability of abortion in the event that contraception should fail" were Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony Kennedy and David H. Souter.
George Walker Bush, who almost gave us the pro-abortion Harriet Miers as O'Connor's replacement on the Supreme Court, was, of course entirely unaffected by O'Connor's pro-abortion legacy in her twenty-four years on the Court, authorizing then Press Secretary Scott McCllelan to say on July 1, 2005, that "he [Bush] wishes he could have hugged her" ("He Wishes He Could Have Hugged Her"). Bush wanted to hug Sandra Day O'Connor? O'Connor's lifelong commitment to advance baby-killing, both by chemical and surgical means, meant nothing to the dimwit former president whose administration funded the assassinations of countless numbers of innocent preborn children by chemical--and surgical--means as a result of international and domestic "family planning" program and who is responsible for the deaths of countless numbers of innocent civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan. George W. Bush wanted "hug" Sandra Day O'Connor. Ugh.
In addition to those "conservatives" in the naturalist realm of politics who claim that they did not "know" about Sandra Day O'Connor's lifelong commitment to abortion when Ronald Reagan nominated her in 1981 in spite of the testimony of Howard Phillips and Judie Brown before the Senate Judiciary Committee are the same ones who contend to this very day that Associate Justice David H. Souter, who announced two days ago that he will be retiring from the Court at the end of its current term in June, providing Caesar Obamus to nominate his successors (a case of "like" replacing "like" as Souter's replacement will not change the current "balance" on the Supreme Court), was a "stealth" nominee about whom no one knew very much, which is why they relied upon recommendations provided by then White House Chief of Staff John Sununu, Sr., and United States Senator Gordon Humphrey. Once again, however, facts prove to be most inconvenient to those, such as the hapless, mercurial, ever-inarticulate thirty-third degree Mason named Robert Joseph Dole, Jr. did in a letter to Rush Limbaugh last year (Dole Letter to Limbaugh, February 5, 2008, who continue to say that they were "misled" about the Souter nomination.
Misled?
Misled?
By whom?
Misled about David Souter? What a farcical lie.
As noted earlier, Howard Phillips had the goods on David Souter:
Howard Phillips, the Chairman of the Conservative Caucus Foundation gave this testimony before the Judiciary Committee of the United States Senate on September 19, 1990, demonstrating that David Souter had the blood of the innocent dripping on his hands:
In considering David Souter’s suitability to cast what, in many cases, will be the deciding opinion on the Supreme Court of the United States, it is necessary to go beyond Mr. Souter’s intellectual capacity and his stated opinions, and to assess his character and moral courage in their relationship to the responsibilities of a Supreme Court Justice.
DAVID SOUTER His pro-abortion record was there for those who wanted to know the truth. One moment of truth for Mr. Souter came in February, 1973 when, as a member of the board of trustees of Concord Hospital, he participated in a unanimous decision that abortions be performed at the hospital.
Advocacy of, or even acquiescence in, such a decision is morally distinguishable from the judicial conclusion, profoundly incorrect in my view, that women have a constitutional right to destroy their unborn children.
It is also distinguishable from and far more troubling than the political argument by politicians who maintain that they are “personally opposed” to abortion, even as they advocate its decriminalization.
It is one thing to intellectually rationalize the case for permitting legal abortions, while still opposing the exercise of such legal authority. It is quite another - something far more invidious, morally - to actually join in a real world decision to cause abortions to be performed, routinely, at a particular hospital.
Those abortions whose performance was authorized by David Souter were not mandated by law or court opinion. In fact, laws have remained to this day on the books in New Hampshire which provide criminal penalties for any “attempt to procure miscarriage” or “intent to destroy quick child.” Indeed, section 585:14 of the New Hampshire Criminal Code establishes the charge of second degree murder for the death of a pregnant woman in consequence of an attempted abortion. Nor were those abortions which Mr. Souter authorized performed merely to save the life of the mother, nor were they limited to cases of rape or incest.
If the unborn child is human, and if innocent human life is to be defended and safeguarded, why did Mr. Souter acquiesce in those abortions? Why did he not speak out against them? Why did he, through twelve years on the Concord Hospital board, in a position of responsibility, help cause those abortions to be performed, and invest his personal reputation in clearly implied approval of those abortions?
The overarching moral issue in the political life of the United States in the last third of the 20th Century is, in my opinion, the question of abortion. Is the unborn child a human person, entitled to the protections pledged to each of us by the Founders of our Nation?
The issue is much more than one of legal or judicial philosophy. There are men and women in the legal profession, in elected office, and on the bench who acknowledge abortion to be morally repugnant, but who assert that, in present circumstances, it cannot be constitutionally prohibited.
Whatever Mr. Souter’s legal and judicial philosophy may be - and, on the record, it seems to be one which rejects the higher law theories implicit in the Declaration of Independence - it is a chilling fact which the Senate must consider that Judge Souter has personally participated in decisions resulting in the performance of abortions, where such abortions were in no way mandated or required by law or court decision.
By his own account, Mr. Souter served as a member of the board of trustees for the Concord Hospital from 1971 until 1985. Following service as board secretary, he was president of the board from 1978 to 1984.
In 1973, shortly after the Supreme Court’s January 22 Roe v. Wade decision, the Concord Hospital trustees voted to initiate a policy of performing abortions at Concord Hospital.
Similarly, Dartmouth Hitchcock Hospital, which is associated with the Dartmouth Medical School, of which Judge Souter has been an overseer, has performed abortion up to the end of the second trimester.
During the period of Mr. Souter’s tenure as a decision-maker of these two institutions, many hundreds of abortions were performed under his authority, with no indication that he ever objected to or protested the performance of these abortions. Even though the Roe v. Wade decision did, in fact, authorize abortions through the ninth month of pregnancy, nothing in the Supreme Court’s decision required or obliged any hospital to conduct abortions, whether in the ninth month, the sixth month, or even in the first month of pregnancy.
If Judge Souter is confirmed as a Justice of the Supreme Court, he will, in all likelihood, be given the opportunity to address not only the issue of Roe v. Wade, but broader issues involving the sanctity of innocent human life.
Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in the 1986 Thornburgh case, “there is a fundamental and well-recognized difference between a fetus and a human being. Indeed, if there is not such a difference, the permissibility of terminating the life of a fetus could scarcely be left to the will of the State legislatures.”
Justice Stevens was wrong in a very deadly way. If an unborn child is not human, I would ask Justice Stevens, what is he, what is she? But as least Mr. Stevens was logical in defending his support for the majority opinion in Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court said that, “If the personhood of the unborn child is established, the pro-abortion case collapses, for the fetus’s right to life is then guaranteed specifically by the Fourteenth Amendment.”
As Notre Dame law professor Charles Rice has pointed out, “This is so, because the common law does not permit a person to kill an innocent non-aggressor, even to save his own life.”
Does David Souter believe that the unborn child - the fetus in the mother’s womb - is a human person, deserving of all the protections which are guaranteed to human beings after the moment of birth?
Seemingly, Mr. Souter’s answer is an unequivocal “no.” by agreeing that abortions be performed at institutions under his authority, Mr. Souter established clearly that he did not recognize the personhood of the unborn child. For surely, if he did acknowledge the unborn child to be a human person, Mr. Souter would not have agreed to authorize the extinguishment of so many precious lives at medical facilities for which he bore responsibility.
One must conclude that either Mr. Souter accepts the view that the life of the unborn child is of less value than the convenience and profit of those who collaborate in the killing of that child, or that, despite his recognition of the fact that each unborn child is human, a handiwork of God’s creation, he lacked the moral courage or discernment to help prevent the destruction of so many innocent human lives when he had the authority, indeed, the responsibility, to do so.
Either way, in such circumstances, unless there are mitigating factors or extenuating considerations which have not yet been brought to public attention, it is difficult to regard Mr. Souter as one suitable for participation in judicial decisions at the highest level of our Nation.
If, during his years of responsibility at Concord Hospital and Dartmouth Hitchcock Hospital, Mr. Souter believed each fetus to be a human person, and failed to act against the performance of abortion, he was morally delinquent.
If, on the other hand, he justified himself by denying the human qualities of the unborn child, then he placed himself in the ambit of those who have argued against the very philosophy which his sponsor, President George Bush, purported to embrace during his 1988 presidential campaign.
On the basis of the information now available, Mr. Souter, in my opinion, should not be confirmed. (Testimony of: HOWARD PHILLIPS Chairman, The Conservative Caucus Foundation.)
Did this factual presentation matter to any of the "pro-life" senators, including Bob Dole and John McCain? Not one little bit. To this day, these craven careerists have hid behind the abject lie that they were "misled" by then President George Herbert Walker Bush's White House Chief of Staff, John Sununu, the former Governor of the State of New Hampshire, about David Souter. This is a lie. An abject lie. Howard Phillips presented incontrovertible evidence about David Souter's support for abortion. This did not matter one little bit to Bob Dole or to John McCain. Not one little bit. The facts were presented. They did not care. Not one little bit.
The facts about Sandra Day O'Connor's and David H. Souter's lifelong pro-abortion track record before their nominations to the Court by naturalists who belong to the organized crime family known as the Republican Party did not matter to "conservatives" for the same reason that the language of the United States Constitution does not matter to the man who nominate David Souter's replacement, Caesar Obamus: neither "conservatives" (including the late thirty-third degree Mason Jack Kemp, who run for vie president with his fellow thirty-third degree Mason Robert Joseph Dole, Jr., see New York Mason December 2006): all law must be subordinated to the binding precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law as they have been entrusted by Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to the Catholic Church for their eternal safekeeping and infallible explication in all that pertains to the good of souls.
Naturalists of the "conservative" stripe assess judicial nominees on the basis of "strict-constructionism" of the words of the Constitution of the United States of America. Positivists such as the pro-abortion, Marxist-trained statist named Barack Hussein Obama assess judicial nominees on the basis of a jurisprudence founded in pure subjectivism:
"I will seek someone who understands that justice isn't about some abstract legal theory or footnote in a case book. It is also about how our laws affect the daily realities of people's lives." (Obama hopes to replace Souter by October - More politics- msnbc.com.)
The "debate" that will take place along the naturalist fault-lines of the false opposites of "the left" and "the right" over David Souter's replacement on the Supreme Court of the United States of America would be a needless one if this country were known as the Catholic States of America, a land where men and women would understand that no one is truly free unless he yokes himself entirely to the Cross of the Divine Redeemer, found this very day by Saint Helena, the fearless defender of the Faith from the time she was baptized by Saint Alban in Britain and the mother of Emperor Constantine, who saw the Cross in the sky as a sign of his impending victory over the forces of Galerius, as It is lifted high by the Catholic Church, a land would understand that civil law must be subordinated to the binding precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law in all that pertains to the good of souls, a land where those in civil authority recognized the Catholic Church as the true religion and pursued the common temporal good in light of man's Last End. The "debate" about David Souter's replacement is indeed just another sorry indication of the evil effects of a nation founded on the false, naturalistic, anti-Incarnational, religiously indifferentist and semi-Pelagian principles of Modernity.
Civil law is not meant to be founded on the shifting sands of "popular sovereignty," as many "conservatives" and "libertarians" claim, or on the shifting sands of judicial positivism (the belief that morality is determined by the vote of judges as they assess the constitutionality of various pieces of legislation and/or executive/administrative actions and orders). Civil law is meant to be founded on a due subordination to the Deposit of Faith that Our Lord entrusted exclusively to His Catholic Church.
We are not to be concerned about the views of the Supreme Court. We are to seek the favor of the highest "court" of all, that of Christ the King, as Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., noted in his commentary, contained in The Liturgical Year, on the feast of Saint Athanasius, which we celebrated yesterday, May 2, 2009:
The Court of our divine King, during his grandest of seasons, is brilliant beyond measure; and to-day, it is gladdened by the arrival of one of the most glorious champions of the world of truth for his holy cause. Among the guardians of the word of truth, confided by Jesus to the earth, is there one more faithful than Athanasius? Does not his very name remind us of dauntless courage in the defense of the sacred deposit, of heroic firmness and patience in suffering, of learning, of talent, of eloquence--in a word, of everything that goes to from a Saint, a Bishop, and a Doctor of the Church? Athanasius lived for the Son of god; the cause of the Son of God was that of Athanasius; he who blessed Athanasius, blessed the eternal Word; and he who insulted Athanasius insulted the eternal Word.
Never did our holy faith go through a greater ordeal than in the sad times immediately following the peace of the Church, when the bark of Peter had to pass through the most furious storm that hell has, so far, let loose against her. Satan had vainly sought to drown the Christian race in a sea of blood; the sword of persecution had grown blunt in the hands of Diocletian and Galerius; and the Cross appeared in the heavens, proclaiming the triumph of Christianity. Scarcely had the Church become aware of her victory when she felt herself shaken to her very foundation. Hell sent upon the earth a heresy which threatened to blight the fruit of three hundred years of martyrdom. Arius began his impious doctrine, that he who had hitherto been adored as the Son of God was only a creature, though the most perfect of all creatures. Immense was the number, even of the clergy, that fell into this new error; the Emperors became its abettors; and had not God himself interposed, men would soon have set up the cry throughout the world that the only result of the victory gained by the Christian religion was to change the object of idolatry, and put a new idol, called Jesus, in place of the old ones.
But he who had promised that the gates of hell should never prevail against his Church, faithfully fulfilled his promise. The primitive faith triumphed; the Council of Nicaea proclaimed the Son to be consubstantial with the Father; but the Church stood in need of a man in whom the cause of the consubstantial Word should be, so to speak, incarnated--a man with learning enough to foil the artifices of heresy, and with courage enough to bear every persecution without flinching. This man was Athanasius; and everyone that adores and loves the Son of God, should love and honour Athanasius. Five times banished from his See of Alexandria, he fled for protection to the West, which justly appreciated the glorious confessor of Jesus' divinity. In return for the hospitality accorded him by Rome, Athanasius gave her of his treasures. Being the admirer and friend of the great St. Antony, he was a fervent admirer of the monastic life, which, by the grace of the Holy Ghost, had flourished so wonderfully in the deserts of his vast patriarchate. He brought the precious seed to Rome, and the first monks seen there were the ones introduced by Athanasius. The heavenly plant became naturalized in its new soil; and though its growth was slow at first, it afterwards produced fruit more abundantly than it had ever done in the East.
Dom Prosper Gueranger qualified his opening paragraphs about Saint Athanasius by describing Arianism as having let loose "the most furious storm, so far," that Holy Mother Church had gone through. Modernism, which is the theological adaptation of the falsehoods of Modernity to make "belief" "reasonable" to the mythical entity known as "modern man" with his "modern mind, is by far the worst storm that Holy Mother Church as faced as Catholics have indeed accommodated themselves to philosophical and theological falsehoods suiting the purposes of disorder in their own souls and thus disorder in their nations and in the world quite consistently.
In the midst of this storm, however, God has raised up new apostles after the pattern of Saint Athanasius, true bishops and true priests who are unyielding in their refusal to make any concessions to conciliarism or to the nonexistent legitimacy of its false shepherds.
It was three years ago yesterday, May 2, 2006, that Sharon, Lucy and yours truly first assisted at Holy Mass at Saint Gertrude the Great Church, being most impressed with the glories given to God in the offering of that Mass and, of course, with the sermon given by His Excellency Bishop Daniel L. Dolan. We have learned a lot in the past three years. We are still learning. We are very much indebted to His Excellency Bishop Dolan and to Father Cekada and to His Excellency Bishop Donald Sanborn and to His Excellency Bishop Robert F. McKenna and to His Excellency Bishop Mark A. Pivaranus for what they have taught us in the past three years. And we are very grateful for the fact that we have been able through the intercession of Our Lady and her Most Chaste Spouse, Saint Joseph, for finding us the means (as the result of the generosity of several most kind souls) to settle within a reasonable distance of Saint Gertrude's, where each day prepares one for the glories that we desire to experience for all eternity in Heaven. (More details in the next travelogue. Yes, the days of endless driving appear to be over, although the days of penance are, most gratefully, always with us! They are our means of salvation.)
The falsehoods of Modernity and Modernism are given no quarter in the Catholic catacombs of today, places that keep alive the spirit expressed by Saint Athanasius in a letter to his flock:
May God console you! ... What saddens you ... is the fact that others have occupied the churches by violence, while during this time you are on the outside. It is a fact that they have the premises – but you have the Apostolic Faith. They can occupy our churches, but they are outside the true Faith. You remain outside the places of worship, but the Faith dwells within you. Let us consider: what is more important, the place or the Faith? The true Faith, obviously. Who has lost and who has won in the struggle – the one who keeps the premises or the one who keeps the Faith? True, the premises are good when the Apostolic Faith is preached there; they are holy if everything takes place there in a holy way ...
"You are the ones who are happy; you who remain within the Church by your Faith, who hold firmly to the foundations of the Faith which has come down to you from Apostolic Tradition. And if an execrable jealousy has tried to shake it on a number of occasions, it has not succeeded. They are the ones who have broken away from it in the present crisis. No one, ever, will prevail against your Faith, beloved Brothers. And we believe that God will give us our churches back some day.
"Thus, the more violently they try to occupy the places of worship, the more they separate themselves from the Church. They claim that they represent the Church; but in reality, they are the ones who are expelling themselves from it and going astray. Even if Catholics faithful to Tradition are reduced to a handful, they are the ones who are the true Church of Jesus Christ." (Letter of St. Athanasius)
Let these words continue to be our consolation in these days when it is easier for most people to believe in the mythologies of naturalists in the political realm and the Modernists in the theological realm who esteem false idols than it is to hold steadfast to the Faith by embracing It no matter the consequences.
We turn to Our Lady with every beat of our hearts, consecrated as they must be to Most Sacred Heart of her Divine Son, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, through her own Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart, pledging to her in this month of May to pray the Litany of Loreto every day in addition to praying as many Rosaries each day as our states-in-life permit. We can crown Our Lady as Queen of our hearts by making reparation for our sins and those of the whole world by enslaving ourselves to her Divine Son through her Immaculate Heart, giving unto whatever merit we earn each day so that she can dispose of that merit however she sees fit for the honor and glory of the Most Holy Trinity and for the good of souls in the Church Suffering in Purgatory and here in the Church Militant on earth.
The final victory belongs to Our Lady's Immaculate Heart. We must consider it a privilege that we are alive in these times to plant a few seeds for the restoration of the Church Militant on earth and for the restoration of Christendom in the world.
Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon!
Vivat Christus Rex! Viva Cristo Rey!
Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.
