Shamelessness of the Shamed
by
Thomas A. Droleskey
Although I have written on this subject before, I thought it useful to write a relatively brief article concerning the indictment of one William Roger Clemens, a noted baseball cheat, cowardly head hunter, and serial philanderer, on Thursday, August 19, 2010, by a Federal grand jury that sat in the United States District for the District of Columbia on the following charges:
The 19-page indictment charged Clemens, 48, with three counts of making false statements, two counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of Congress during his testimony in a nationally televised hearing in February 2008 before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. (Clemens Lied to Congress About Doping, Indictment Charges.)
William Rogers Clemens is but another victim of the Protestant Revolution against the Divine Plan that God Himself instituted to effect man's return to Him through the Catholic Church. Although it is certainly true that each of us, wounded as we are by the vestigial after-effects of Original Sin (the darkened intellect, the weakened will, the disordered relationship between our higher rational faculties and our lower sensual passions that incline those lower passions to triumph rather easily when inflamed) and our own Actual Sins, can act with defiance or pride when we are faced with the consequences of our own immoral or unjust actions, it is also true that those who are entirely unaware of the necessity of accusing themselves humbly in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance before a true priest who is acting in persona Christi so they can be Absolved of their sins and seek to cooperate more fully with the Sanctifying Graces won for us on the wood of the Holy Cross by the shedding of every single drop of the Most Precious Blood of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and that flow into our hearts and souls through the loving hands of Our Lady, she who is the Mediatrix of All Graces, are even more inclined to be lost in a sea of defiance and pride when they find themselves in trouble.
Those who believe that they are "special" and who believe in the heretic Martin Luther's lie that one is "forgiven" of his Mortal Sins without the mediation of a true priest in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance will be inclined to believe that they can "bluff" their way out of difficult situations. This is how former President William Jefferson Blythe Clinton got his way out of various scandals (Whitewater, Filegate, Travelgate, Chinagate, Monicagate) and continues to live his life to this very day, playing jubilant crowds as he receives thunderous ovations despite having entered into a "consent agreement" with Independent Counsel Robert Ray on January 19, 2001, in which he admitted making "misleading" statements in testimony he gave to attorneys representing Paula Corbin Jones on January 17, 1998. Perjury? What's the big deal? Clinton's a celebrity, right? The pro-abortion Bill Clinton believes he is above all law, including that of the true God of Divine Revelation.
Another political "super power," United States Representative Charles Bernard Rangel, a pro-abortion Catholic who is also a thirty-third degree Mason and has maintained his "good standing" in the conciliar structures despite his support for baby-killing and perversity and being a member of a Masonic lodge, is thumbing his nose at the charges that have been brought against him by the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct of the United States House of Representatives, more commonly known as the "House Ethics Committee" (see
Becoming What They Once Opposed):
Rangel recently held a star-studded eightieth birthday party for himself on Wednesday evening, August 11, 2010:
As former Republican Sen. Al D'Amato, now a lobbyist, told me as he worked the room before the program started, "Everyone in politics has got to live by their own code. Charlie and I worked together in Washington for 18 years. So I'm here because when people are in trouble, that's when they want to see you."
Throughout the evening, Rangel kept his emotions mostly in check, smiling broadly and giving a thumbs-up sign as Dionne Warwick (substituting for Aretha Franklin, who had been injured in a fall) sang, "That's what friends are for/For good times and bad times/I'll be on your side forever more." But flashes of pain also crossed Rangel's face, particularly when R & B legend Chuck Jackson delivered his mournful and moving rendition of "You'll Never Walk Alone." It was hard not to imagine Rangel's anguish over being stripped of the chairmanship of the House Ways and Means Committee as Jackson sang, "Walk on through the wind/Walk on through the rain/Though your dreams be tossed and blown."
With ineffectual lame-duck Gov. David Paterson serving woodenly as the MC -- and having to introduce Andrew Cuomo, the man who pushed him aside as the Democratic gubernatorial nominee -- moments of political awkwardness were inevitable. At one point, Paterson said ruefully, after being told to juggle the order of speakers to accommodate Sen. Chuck Schumer's schedule, "They're not happy with my work." Most New York voters feel the same way -- a statewide Quinnipiac University poll in June gave Paterson a 29-percent approval rating.
The safest political gambit in honoring the beleaguered Rangel was to lavishly praise his prior record and conspicuously ignore the current unpleasantness. Kirsten Gillibrand, appointed to Hillary Clinton's Senate seat last year and facing her first statewide election in November, took this route as she gushed, "Thank you, Charlie, for your service to the country and your service to our wonderful state."
But in light of the
ethics charges against Rangel, too much specificity was fraught with irony, if not actual political risk. Schumer, who has served with Rangel in Congress for almost three decades, went out of his way to praise the veteran legislator for his selfless service on the House Ways and Means Committee. Schumer explained that veteran members of the tax-writing committee get to dispense politically useful favors by doing "something for a big shot in their industry or a big power in the industry." But as Schumer told the crowd at the Plaza, "Year after year Charlie Rangel said, 'Don't do things to benefit me. Just make sure that the low-income housing tax credit gets extended.' "
There was only one problem with this uplifting story -- the ethics committee report outlining the charges against Rangel. The most serious allegation in the report (and Rangel has not yet had a chance to formally respond) is that the veteran congressman solicited donations from corporations and individuals with tax issues before the Ways and Means Committee to establish a Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at City University. While the financial benefits to Rangel from this center would be modest (mostly office space after retirement), the lasting benefits for Rangel's ego would be priceless.(See Charlie Rangel's Birthday Bash: A Night for Ethics Amnesia).
There are many telling quotes in this article by longtime political columnist Walter Shapiro about the Rangel birthday party that was hosted by the pro-abortion, pro-perversity, ethically challenged (see
Little Caesars All (Pizza! Pizza!)) Catholic Governor of the State of New York, David Paterson, and which featured a veritable roster of political all-star speakers, including the pro-abortion, pro-pervsity United States Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-New York), a Catholic, and the man who defeated me for the United States senatorial nomination of the Right to Life Party of the State of New York, on September 14, 1998, former United States Senator Alfonse M. D'Amato (whose record on the life issues, including his support for funding for domestic and international "family planning" programs and for surgical baby-killing in the so-called "hard cases," I have documented many times in the past). Senator D'Amato unwittingly summarized the amoral spirit of American politics with the following quote:
"Everyone in politics has got to live by their own code. Charlie and I worked together in Washington for 18 years. So I'm here because when people are in trouble, that's when they want to see you." (See Charlie Rangel's Birthday Bash: A Night for Ethics Amnesia).
"Everyone in politics has got to live by their own code." To quote our friend Mrs. Joanne McOsker, "Now that's a statement for you." It sure is, Mrs. McOsker. It sure is.
Although his past public efforts as a crooner do not put him in the league of the late supporter of baby-killing named Francis Albert Sinatra (who donated the proceeds of his 1993 album Duets to "pro-choice" causes to "honor"" his late mother, Dolly Sinatra, who was a baby-killer in the days when such killing was illegal in the State of New Jersey), a little fact that did nothing to stop him from having a "Mass of Christian Burial" at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills, California, on May 20, 1998 (thank you, Roger "Cardinal" Mahony), Alfonse M. D'Amato's belief that "everyone in politics has got to live by their own code" is evocative of Sinatra's insidious "My Way" recording, which a presbyter in the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter said in 2001 was one of the most diabolical songs of all time as it glorified the triumph of self-assertion over a humble submission to the law of God.
William Rogers Clemens had his own "code," and he lived by it as he cheated to excel as a major league baseball pitcher after his original team, the Boston Red Sox, for which he played between May 15, 1984, until the end of the 1996 season, declined to re-sign him after a mediocre season of ten victories and thirteen defeats. Clemens was determined to prove that he, then thirty-four years of age, was not "done" as an effective pitcher. It was during his second season with the Toronto Blue Jays in 1998 that Clemens, having been introduced to trainer Brian McNamee, began taking what are called euphemistically called "performance enhancing drugs" (PEDs), namely, steroids and human growth hormone, a practice he resumed in the 2000 and 2001 seasons with the incarnation of all. evil in the world, the New York Yankees.
Roger Clemens certainly had his own "code," one that is quintessentially American and that appeals very much to the "anything goes" mentality of the falsehoods of "libertarianism," an insidious evil that deifies contingent beings who did not create themselves and whose bodies are destined for the corruption of the grave until the General Judgment of the living and the dead on the Last Day into virtual moral automatons who can do anything they like with "their own bodies" regardless of the binding precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law and regardless of how each our least Venial Sins, having wounded Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ once in time during His Passion and Death, add to the foul miasma of sin in the world and thus help to produce more social disorder and chaos as a result.
The insidious lies of "libertarianism" are founded in the false belief that man can know authentic liberty absent a due submission of his whole heart, mind, body, and soul to the Deposit of Faith that Our Lord has entrusted exclusively to His Catholic Church for Its eternal safekeeping and infallible explication. The whole myth of doing things "my way" and the "way" of "American individualism," products as they are of the Protestant Revolution and the rise of naturalism under the aegis of Judeo-Masonry, has convinced the rich and powerful and the famous that they are exempt the laws of God and that they must be applauded for doing so as legions of sycophantic supporters and enablers whisper these myths into their heads over and over and over again.
Those in the naturalistic farce that is American politics are enabled all of the time by "go-fers" and toadies and factotums.
Charles Rangel, for example, who started out his Congressional career in 1970 by challenging the corrupt United States Representative Adam Clayton Powell and who railed against then President Richard Milhous Nixon during the impeachment hearings held by the Committee on the Judiciary of the United States House of Representatives in 1974 and who excoriated then President Ronald Wilson Reagan for the sale of weapons to Iran in exchange for the release of Americans held hostage by the Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon as some of the proceeds from those weapon sales were diverted to the anti-Communist Contra rebels in Nicaragua when this business came to light in November of 1986, is still being enabled by all manner of political hangers-on and groupies.
So is United States Representative Maxine Waters (D-California), a firm supporter of the Sandinistas and of Cuban dictator and mass murderer Fidel Castro and who justified the murders of fifty-three innocent beings and the wounding of thousands of others during the "South Central" riots in Los Angeles, California, following the acquittal of the four City of Los Angeles police officers who were accused of using excessive force against Rodney King, a drunken motorist who was resisting arrest after being caught driving while intoxicated,on April 29, 1992, is trying to hide behind her race in order to indemnify herself against charges that she used her Congressional office as a means to aid her husband's investment in a bank. That the sorry likes of cheaters such as Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez and Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa and Rafael Palmiero and Jason Giambi and Andy Pettite and Miguel Tejada--among scores and scores of others--have had enablers to this very day to help them live by their own "personal codes" is but the fruit of a world of naturalism where most people do not fear offending God and have no fear of having their immortal souls thrown into Hell for all eternity after their deaths.
Major League Baseball cheaters have been enabled by managers and coaches who looked the other way as their clubhouses became veritable centers of illegal activity.
Major League Baseball cheaters have been enabled by fellow players who wanted to keep their own mouths shut out of fear of being ostracized as "finks" or "snitches."
Major League Baseball cheaters have been enabled by owners who just wanted to put fans in the seats as the revenue from television and radio broadcasting rights fees and advertising made possible the payment of exorbitant sums of money to men to play but a mere game, one that has grown disproportionately from a legitimate diversion into a virtual obsession that consumes the lives of so many ordinary Americans to such an extent that the following of the "game" has become a veritable "religion."
Lots and lots of Americans spend their days listening to sports radio programs or watching various sports discussion programs on cable or satellite television and/or on the internet. The Catholic Faith? Saving one's immortal soul? Trying to please God as He has revealed Himself to us exclusively through His true Church? Praying more Rosaries each day? Detaching oneself more and more from worldly distractions so as to grow in holiness and to attempt to make reparation for our sins by offering these sacrifices to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary? No, it's the "team" that matters. It's the "game" that matters, which is why so many Americans spend lots and lots of their disposable income on tickets to watch the games in person and on premium cable or satellite channels to watch the games at home and on the "gear" so as to show their "pride" in their team.
Sure, I grant you that it used to be a lot of good, clean fun to go a baseball game as long as one kept the diversion in its proper place. I have written about this many times. Indeed, a man wrote to me entirely out of the blue, although completely within the Providence of God, of course, eight days ago to thank me for the years during which I provided a little entertainment to the fans in the stands at the now demolished William A. Shea Municipal Stadium in Flushing Meadows, Queens, New York, which is the only reason why I kept up my activities at the ball park for as long as I did, knowing that the fans enjoyed the antics. There is a place for good, clean fun as a legitimate means of recreation and relaxation if it is kept in its proper perspective and dimension. And there are certainly men who play the game today who bring their lunch pails to work and simply go about their business of working hard to earn their keep (Robert Allen Dickey, a journeyman pitcher now with the New York Mets, comes to mind as one who uses hard work and guile to do his best without complain and without lollygagging), which is why the eighty-three year old Vincent Scully has decided to return for a sixty-second year of broadcasting baseball games for the Brooklyn and (since 1958) Los Angeles Dodgers (see Vin Scully to return to Los Angeles Dodgers broadcast booth next year).
No matter the fact that money and the licentiousness of a society that has degenerated more and more as a result of various naturalistic myths and as a result of the loss of Sanctifying and Actual Graces in the world as a result of the bogus sacramental rites of the counterfeit church of conciliarism have corrupted and distorted a legitimate diversion and pastime, it is certainly true that an outing to a baseball park decades ago used to be an occasion of great joy and peace (soothed as we were by the melodious sound of organ music), not an occasion to have one's peace disturbed by cheaters on the field and profane-speaking, immodestly attired spectators in the stands. And I will admit that there are times when I am tempted, sometimes even sorely tempted, to "go back" for "just one game" if only to see the people "behind the scenes" at the ball park I had known for so many decades and to mingle with the fans once again. And I hold nothing against those who do continue to go to games now and again as the decision that I have made represents a personal choice to try to be more and more detached from the world and to make reparation for the ways in which I have wasted my time and money in the past.
That having been noted, however, the innocence and purity of a legitimate pastime have been corrupted by a sea of enablers, chief among them are the enablers of the cheaters in Major League Baseball within the ranks of the Major League Baseball Players Association, whose leaders prevented any drug testing of its members until 2002 and urged players not to cooperate with the investigation of the epidemic of illegal drugs in the game that was being conducted by former United States Senator George Mitchell, something that I noted in "The Final Strike," December 16, 2007:
Relativism is very much at work in the whole sordid business of what professional sports has become, a caricature of anything resembling a legitimate diversion and the very embodiment of all that goes wrong in a world of naturalism and materialism and hedonism and just unbridled licentiousness. The officials of Major League Baseball and the owners and general managers and other top executives of the thirty Major League Baseball clubs knew about the problems associated with anabolic steroids and other substances. So did field managers and coaches and trainers and medical personnel. They didn't care. They just wanted to "win." Tony La Russa, now the manager of the Saint Louis Cardinals, presided over a clubhouse as manager of the Oakland Athletics (and with the Cardinals) where one had to be Mister Magoo himself not to have seen what was going on amongst the players. Joe Torre didn't see or suspect anything with the changes in the body physique of some members of his championship New York Yankees' teams? No one wanted to see. No one cared. What's the big deal, right? Nobody's getting hurt?
The officials of Major League Baseball and owners and general managers and other top executives and field managers and coaches and trainers and medical personnel were not alone in their dereliction of civic duty and their responsibility to maintain the competitive integrity of the sport in which they were employed. True to the corrupt legacy of American labor unions, the Major League Baseball Players' Association, led for the past two decades by Donald Fehr and his assistant Gene Orza, have sought to indemnity the players at every turn, agreeing in 2005 to a strengthening of a pathetically weak testing program that was instituted in the terms of the 2002 Collective Bargaining Agreement between the Association and Major League Baseball, only as a result of Congressional hearings that were called to investigate the use of steroids in professional baseball. The consistent tune of Donald Fehr and Gene Orza has been that there was no testing before 2002, which ignores that the Major League Players' Association opposed such testing for a long time, and that it is obligation of the Association to "protect" its members. Wrong.
Pope Leo XIII pointed out in Rerum Novarum, May 15, 1891, that workers' associations have an obligation to uphold the moral law, which requires workers to perform their work honestly. No one, whether an employee or an employee or a union official, has any right to "protect" those who are doing this contrary to the binding precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law and thus places the integrity of his work, a mattered covered by the Seventh and Eighth Commandments, in jeopardy:
In order that an association may be carried on with unity of purpose and harmony of action, its administration and government should be firm and wise. All such societies, being free to exist, have the further right to adopt such rules and organization as may best conduce to the attainment of their respective objects. We do not judge it possible to enter into minute particulars touching the subject of organization; this must depend on national character, on practice and experience, on the nature and aim of the work to be done, on the scope of the various trades and employments, and on other circumstances of fact and of time -- all of which should be carefully considered.
To sum up, then, We may lay it down as a general and lasting law that working men's associations should be so organized and governed as to furnish the best and most suitable means for attaining what is aimed at, that is to say, for helping each individual member to better his condition to the utmost in body, soul, and property. It is clear that they must pay special and chief attention to the duties of religion and morality, and that social betterment should have this chiefly in view; otherwise they would lose wholly their special character, and end by becoming little better than those societies which take no account whatever of religion. What advantage can it be to a working man to obtain by means of a society material well-being, if he endangers his soul for lack of spiritual food? "What doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his soul?" This, as our Lord teaches, is the mark or character that distinguishes the Christian from the heathen. "After all these things do the heathen seek . . . Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His justice: and all these things shall be added unto you." Let our associations, then, look first and before all things to God; let religious instruction have therein the foremost place, each one being carefully taught what is his duty to God, what he has to believe, what to hope for, and how he is to work out his salvation; and let all be warned and strengthened with special care against wrong principles and false teaching. Let the working man be urged and led to the worship of God, to the earnest practice of religion, and, among other things, to the keeping holy of Sundays and holy days. Let him learn to reverence and love holy Church, the common Mother of us all; and hence to obey the precepts of the Church, and to frequent the sacraments, since they are the means ordained by God for obtaining forgiveness of sin and for leading a holy life.
A workers' association founded on naturalistic, materialistic principles winds up protecting the criminal behavior of its members, oblivious to the common moral good of society. This is all part and parcel of a larger economic system based on Calvinist and Judeo-Masonic principles that deny the social effects of the Incarnation and the Redemptive Act of Our Lord and deny any thought of the pursuit of man's Last End as defining even the economic relationships between management and workers. In this regard, you see, the officials of Major League Baseball and of its thirty clubs and of the Players' Association are united in their disregard of the common moral good of society as each seek to maximize the economic benefits of expanded revenues from attendance, television, radio, cable and satellite broadcasts, advertising and merchandising (and the licensing of merchandising for manufacture and sale by third parties, who provide royalties to Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players' Association).
Aided and abetted by a not a few journalists, themselves the products of a relativistic and individualistic age devoid of any concept of First and Last Things, almost everyone involved in the sordid business of overlooking and/or enabling or excusing the use of illegal "performance enhancing" drugs and substances in baseball has avoided one important consideration: SUCH DRUGS ARE ILLEGAL UNDER THE FEDERAL CONTROLLED SUBSTANCES ACT OF 1970. Anyone associated with the sale, distribution, possession and use of anabolic steroids, forbidden under Schedule III of the Federal Controlled Substances Act, and amphetamines, forbidden under Schedule II of the Federal Controlled Substances Act, has engaged in a Federal felony. None of the individuals involved in the supervision of major league baseball players thought enough, even on the pure naturalistic level, of the common good of society to report illegal activity to appropriate law enforcement agencies.
The Mitchell Report summarized the pertinent Federal law as it was amended in 1988 and 1990:
There is a widespread misconception that the use of steroids and other
performance enhancing substances, such as human growth hormone, was not prohibited in Major
League Baseball before the inclusion of the joint drug program in the 2002 Basic Agreement. In
fact, as early as 1991 baseball’s drug policy expressly prohibited the use of “all illegal drugs and
controlled substances, including steroids or prescription drugs for which the individual … does
not have a prescription.” Even before then, however, the use of any prescription drug without a
valid prescription was prohibited in baseball, and even earlier under federal law. In 1971,
baseball’s drug policy required compliance with federal, state, and local drug laws and directed
baseball’s athletic trainers that anabolic steroids should only be provided to players under a
physician’s guidance.
A. Laws Regarding Performance Enhancing Substances
Since 1938, the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act has prohibited distribution
of all prescription drugs except when a physician, based upon an individualized determination of
a proper course of treatment, has authorized use of a drug by a patient under the physician’s
supervision.
In 1970, in reaction to a perceived epidemic of drug abuse in the United States,
Congress enacted the Controlled Substances Act, which among other things established criminal penalties for drug offenses. The act created five schedules of controlled substances that
categorized pharmaceuticals and drugs of abuse based on their “potential for abuse, accepted
medical utility, and safety of use under medical supervision.” The categories ranged from
Schedule I, which was reserved for drugs such as heroin that have “high potential for abuse,” “no
currently accepted medical use,” and a “lack of accepted safety,” to Schedule V, for drugs that
have a “currently accepted medical use” and a “low potential for abuse.”
More recently, “[i]n recognition of the fact that illegal drug trafficking in anabolic
steroids and human growth hormone was becoming larger in scope and presenting an ever increasing
health risk to young athletes, Congress addressed the issue with two amendments . . . ,
first in 1988 and then later in 1990.”59 The 1988 amendment added a provision making “the
distribution of anabolic steroids illegal unless (1) it was done pursuant to the order of a
physician, and (2) it was for the purpose of treating a disease.”
The 1990 amendment, called the Anabolic Steroids Control Act of 1990, imposed
more stringent controls with higher criminal penalties for offenses involving the illegal distribution of anabolic steroids and human growth hormone. That enactment reclassified
anabolic steroids as Schedule III controlled substances, effectively raising penalties for their
illegal possession or distribution to levels similar to those applicable to narcotics.
In addition, the unlawful distribution of human growth hormone was classified as
a felony punishable by up to five years imprisonment (or up to ten years imprisonment for
distribution to individuals under the age of 18). Those penalties also applied to distribution of
human growth hormone for a use other than treatment of a disease or as otherwise expressly
approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Human growth hormone has never been
approved by the FDA for cosmetic, anti-aging, or athletic performance purposes. Human
growth hormone was not included with steroids as a Schedule III controlled substance, however,
meaning that under current federal law, there is no criminal penalty for simple possession of
HGH. Several states have regulated human growth hormone as a controlled substance,
however, under their own versions of the Controlled Substances Act. [Those states, listed in footnote 66, are: Colorado, Idaho, Rhode Island, and Virginia.]
While George Mitchell is a relativist of the first rank, a Catholic who supported the "right" of women to murder their own preborn babies under cover of law, and eschewed any penalties being imposed upon those players named in his report, there are few things that serve as an effective deterrent to immoral personal behavior (the pollution of one's body and the cheating at one's work are both immoral acts) of an antisocial nature than the imposition of criminal penalties for the social consequences of violating a just civil law that is in accord with the precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law (libertarians would, of course, say that all such laws are unjust, recognizing no authority of the civil state to regulate what one does to "his" own body, a sophism that is exploded by the simple fact that none of us creates our own bodies and must use them as befits redeemed creatures according to God's laws, the violation of which frequently has social consequences that the civil state may, upon due consideration of the proportionate good end to be sought, enact legislation to penalize).
Anyone in baseball who had a modicum of civic reasonability would have warned individuals seen engaging in this behavior that they would be reported to Federal authorities if they did not cease and desist immediately. The levers of due process of law would then have commenced to determine guilt and to seek prosecution, barring a plea agreement, for the offense. A conviction for or a plea agreement to the commission of a felonious act could then be used as a basis to ban such an individual from the game of baseball permanently and to strike his entire playing record, including any and all career or single-season records, from the record books in perpetuity.
There was no such sense possessed by anyone in Major League Baseball. Officials in the offices of Major League Baseball and the owners and executives of the thirty clubs were raking in millions upon millions of dollars in revenue. Field managers and coaches simply wanted to "win" to retain their jobs. Players wanted to set various playing records and thus to get even richer than they had been in the past for playing a game that has become a substitute for the true Faith in the lives of so many ordinary people in the United States of America. The Mitchell Report was authorized by Major League Baseball Commissioner Allan H. "Bud" Selig only after the book, A Game of Shadows, detailing former Pittsburgh Pirates and San Francisco Giants outfielder (and, one can only hope, former major leaguer) Barry Bonds's use of a variety of anabolic steroids, was published in early-2006. Selig may protest that he had tried to do more than the players' association was willing to do, which was nothing, prior to 2002, which is partly true. Partly true.
The plain truth of the matter is, of course, that Selig became Acting Commissioner in September of 1992 a few months after his predecessor, Francis T. "Fay" Vincent, was overturned by arbitrator after he sought to ban habitual cocaine user Steve Howe, then a relief pitcher for the New York Yankees from the game of baseball forever. Vincent even warned then Yankee manager Buck Showalter not to show up at Howe's arbitration hearing to plead his case, saying that doing so would jeopardize his, Showalter's, career in baseball. Such display of firm leadership in the face of a serious problem (Howe died on April 28, 2006, when his pickup truck rolled over; he had, according to toxicology reports, a high level of methampetamine in his body) was too much for the "lords of baseball." Fay Vincent had to go. What? A commissioner who actually wanted to enforce discipline? Perish the thought.
Selig, who remained the owner of the Milwaukee Brewers until January 13, 2005, fully four and one-half years after he became baseball's "permanent" commissioner in 1998, was concerned about baseball's "bottom line," which is why he was in the forefront, along with Chicago White Sox principal owner Jerry Reinsdorf, of the collusion episodes, designed to conspire against the signing of free agents so as to depress player salaries (owners showed themselves incapable of doing this on their own, thus acting in concert with each other to do so) in the 1980s that resulted in the paying out of over $280 million to the players in compensation. Bud Selig did not want anything to get in the way of the economic expansion of baseball, which the home run contest between souped-up Mark McGwire of the Saint Louis Cardinals and the equally souped-up Sammy Sosa of the Chicago Cubs in 1998 helped to effect following the souring on baseball that occurred in the wake of the players' strike the ended the 1994 season on August 12, 1994, and prevented the 1995 season from opening until April 25, 1995. He was deaf, dumb and blind to the issue of the felonious use of steroids in baseball in the 1990s, although the Mitchell Report details Selig's efforts to deal with the matter internally without involving law enforcement agencies, being rebuffed at almost every turn by the players' association, which was most content to let the issue go away on its own.
The current leaders of the Major League Baseball Players' Association are busy these days trying to indemnify New York Mets' relief pitcher Francisco Rodriguez, who pitched previously for the Anaheim Angels/Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim from 2002 through the end of the 2008 season, after he pummeled the face of his common-law wife's father near the Mets' family room in front of the wives and children of several of his teammates while spouting off a string of bitter profanities. Rodriguez was arrested and charged with misdemeanor assault. The Mets' organization is seeking to discipline Rodriguez, who injured the thumb on his pitching hand during the attack on Carlos Pena on the evening of Wednesday, August 11, 2010. after the Mets lost a game to the Colorado Rockies in which he did not pitch (and was evidently quite angry about that fact), by changing the nature of his contract. What? Discipline a ball player for a violent assault upon an innocent human being? Such a thing is inimical to the greedy, amoral enablers who compose the despicable ranks of the leadership of the Major League Baseball Players' Association. Ball players can never be expected to suffer any kind of consequences for their illegal activity, much less forfeit any of their unjust, exorbitant salaries or have "guaranteed" contracts turned into "non-guaranteed" contracts as the Mets are seeking to do with the obscene amount of money that they still owe to Francisco Rodriguez for this season and the 2001 season.
What the greedy, amoral, overpaid executives of the Major League Baseball Players' Association do not recognize or accept is that the laws of God apply in all the events of our lives and that those who commit grave wrongs, no matter if they be a member of some union or workers' association, must suffer consequences for their actions that are just and proportionate to the wrongs that they have committed, something that Pope Leo XIII pointed out in the passage from Rerum Novarum quoted above.
People in all walks of life have lost sight of the fact that the Catholic Faith is to inform all of our thoughts, our words and our deeds in every circumstance of our lives without any exception whatsoever. Pope Leo XIII explained the connection between the Catholic Faith and a just social order throughout his twenty-five year pontificate in a most moving manner on Christmas Day in 1888, nearly 199 years ago now, in Exeunte Iam Anno. Consider his moving words:
We must therefore strive diligently that after beginning well we may also end well, that the counsels of God may be both understood and put in practice. The obedience shown to the Apostolic See will then be full and perfected, if it be joined with Christian virtue, and thus lead to the salvation of souls -- the only end to be sought for, which will also abide forever. In the exercise of Our high Apostolic office, bestowed upon Us by the goodness of God, We have many times, as in duty bound, undertaken the defense of truth, and have striven to expound particularly those doctrines which seemed to be most useful to all, in order watchfully and carefully to avoid the dangers of error. But now, as a loving parent, We wish to address all Christians, and in homely words to exhort all to lead a holy life. For beyond the mere name of Christian, beyond the mere profession of faith, Christian virtues are necessary for the Christian, and upon this depends, not only the eternal salvation of their souls, but also the peace and prosperity of the human family and brotherhood.
If We look into the kind of life men lead everywhere, it would be impossible to avoid the conclusion that public and private morals differ much from the precepts of the Gospel. Too sadly, alas, do the words of the Apostle St. John apply to our age, "all that is in the world, is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes and the pride of life." For in truth, most men, with little care whence they come or whither they go, place all their thoughts and care upon the weak and fleeting goods of this life; contrary to nature and right reason they willingly give themselves up to those ways of which their reason tells them they should be the masters. It is a short step from the desire of luxury to the striving after the means to obtain it. Hence arises an unbridled greed for money, which blinds those whom it has led captive, and in the fulfillment of its passion hurries them madly along, often without regard for justice or injustice, and not seldom accompanied by a disgraceful contempt for the poverty of their neighbor. Thus many who live in the lap of luxury call themselves brethren of the multitude whom in their heart of hearts they despise; and in the same way with minds puffed up by pride, they take no thought to obey any law, or fear any power. They call selflove liberty, and think themselves "born free like a wild ass's colt. Snares and temptation to sin abound; We know that impious or immoral dramas are exhibited on the stage; that books and journals are written to jeer at virtue and ennoble crime; that the very arts, which were intended to give pleasure and proper recreation, have been made to minister to impurity. Nor can We look to the future without fear, for new seeds of evil are sown, and as it were poured into the heart of the rising generation. As for the public schools, there is no ecclesiastical authority left in them, and in the years when it is most fitting for tender minds to be trained carefully in Christian virtue, the precepts of religion are for the most part unheard. Men more advanced in age encounter a yet graver peril from evil teaching, which is of such a kind as to blind the young by misleading words, instead of filling them with the knowledge of the truth. Many now-adays seek to learn by the aid of reason alone, laying divine faith entirely aside; and, through the removal of its bright light, they stumble and fail to discern the truth, teaching for instance, that matter alone exists in the world; that men and beasts have the same origin and a like nature; there are some, indeed, who go so far as to doubt the existence of God, the Ruler and Maker of the World, or who err most grievously, like the heathens, as to the nature of God. Hence the very nature and form of virtue, justice, and duty are of necessity destroyed. Thus it is that while they hold up to admiration the high authority of reason, and unduly elevate the subtlety of the human intellect, they fall into the just punishment of pride through ignorance of what is of more importance.
When the mind has thus been poisoned, at the same time the moral character becomes deeply and essentially corrupted; and such a state can only be cured with the utmost difficulty in this class of men, because on the one hand wrong opinions vitiate their judgment of what is right, and on the other the light of Christian faith, which is the principle and basis of all justice, is extinguished.
In this way We daily see the numerous ills which afflict all classes of men. These poisonous doctrines have utterly corrupted both public and private life; rationalism, materialism, atheism, have begotten socialism, communism, nihilism-evil principles which it was not only fitting should have sprung from such parentage but were its necessary offspring. In truth, if the Catholic religion is willfully rejected, whose divine origin is made clear by such unmistakable signs, what reason is there why every form of religion should not be rejected, not upheld, by such criteria of truth? If the soul is one with the body, and if therefore no hope of a happy eternity remains when the body dies, what reason is there for men to undertake toil and suffering here in subjecting the appetites to right reason? The highest good of man will then lie in enjoying life's pleasures and life's luxuries. And since there is no one who is drawn to virtue by the impulse of his own nature, every man will naturally lay hands on all he can that he may live happily on the spoils of others. Nor is there any power mighty enough to bridle the passions, for it follows that the power of law is broken, and that all authority is loosened, if the belief in an ever-living God, Who commands what is right and forbids what is wrong is rejected. Hence the bonds of civil society will be utterly shattered when every man is driven by an unappeasable covetousness to a perpetual struggle, some striving to keep their possessions, others to obtain what they desire. This is wellnigh the bent of our age.
There is, nevertheless, some consolation for Us even in looking on these evils, and We may lift up Our heart in hope. For God "created all things that they might be: and He made the nations of the earth for health." But as all this world cannot be upheld but by His providence and divinity, so also men can only be healed by His power, of Whose goodness they were called from death to life. For Jesus Christ redeemed the human race once by the shedding of His blood, but the power of so great a work and gift is for all ages; "neither is there salvation in any other." Hence they who strive by the enforcement of law to extinguish the growing flame of lawless desire, strive indeed for justice; but let them know that they will labor with no result, or next to none, as long as they obstinately reject the power of the gospel and refuse the assistance of the Church. Thus will the evil alone be cured, by changing their ways, and returning back in their public and private life to Jesus Christ and Christianity.
Now the whole essence of a Christian life is to reject the corruption of the world and to oppose constantly any indulgence in it; this is taught in the words and deeds, the laws and institutions, the life and death of Jesus Christ, "the author and finisher of faith." Hence, however strongly We are deterred by the evil disposition of nature and character, it is our duty to run to the "fight proposed to Us," fortified and armed with the same desire and the same arms as He who, "having joy set before him, endured the cross." Wherefore let men understand this specially, that it is most contrary to Christian duty to follow, in worldly fashion, pleasures of every kind, to be afraid of the hardships attending a virtuous life, and to deny nothing to self that soothes and delights the senses. "They that are Christ's, have crucified their flesh, with the vices and concupiscences" -- so that it follows that they who are not accustomed to suffering, and who hold not ease and pleasure in contempt belong not to Christ. By the infinite goodness of God man lived again to the hope of an immortal life, from which he had been cut off, but he cannot attain to it if he strives not to walk in the very footsteps of Christ and conform his mind to Christ's by the meditation of Christ's example. Therefore this is not a counsel but a duty, and it is the duty, not of those only who desire a more perfect life, but clearly of every man "always bearing about in our body the mortification of Jesus." How otherwise could the natural law, commanding man to live virtuously, be kept? For by holy baptism the sin which we contracted at birth is destroyed, but the evil and tortuous roots of sin, which sin has engrafted, and by no means removed. This part of man which is without reason -- although it cannot beat those who fight manfully by Christ's grace -- nevertheless struggles with reason for supremacy, clouds the whole soul and tyrannically bends the will from virtue with such power that we cannot escape vice or do our duty except by a daily struggle. "This holy synod teaches that in the baptized there remains concupiscence or an inclination to evil, which, being left to be fought against, cannot hurt those who do not consent to it, and manfully fight against it by the grace of Jesus Christ; for he is not crowned who does not strive lawfully." There is in this struggle a degree of strength to which only a very perfect virtue, belonging to those who, by putting to flight evil passions, has gained so high a place as to seem almost to live a heavenly life on earth. Granted; grant that few attain such excellence; even the philosophy of the ancients taught that every man should restrain his evil desires, and still more and with greater care those who from daily contact with the world have the greater temptations -- unless it be foolishly thought that where the danger is greater watchfulness is less needed, or that they who are more grievously ill need fewer medicines.
But the toil which is borne in this conflict is compensated by great blessings, beyond and above heavenly and eternal rewards, particularly in this way, that by calming the passions nature is largely restored to its pristine dignity. For man has been born under this law, that the mind should rule the body, that the appetites should be restrained by sound sense and reason; and hence it follows that putting a curb upon our masterful passions is the noblest and greatest freedom. Moreover, in the present state of society it is difficult to see what man could be expected to do without such a disposition. Will he be inclined to do well who has been accustomed to guide his actions by self-love alone? No man can be high-souled, kind, merciful, or restrained, who has not learnt selfconquest and a contempt for this world when opposed to virtue. And yet it must be said that it seems to have been pre-determined by the counsel of God that there should be no salvation to men without strife and pain. Truly, though God has given to man pardon for sin, He gave it under the condition that His only begotten Son should pay the due penalty; and although Jesus Christ might have satisfied divine justice in other ways, nevertheless He preferred to satisfy by the utmost suffering and the sacrifice of His life. Thus he has imposed upon His followers this law, signed in His blood, that their life should be an endless strife with the vices of the age. What made the apostles invincible in their mission of teaching truth to the world; what strengthened the martyrs innumerable in their bloody testimony to the Christian faith, but the readiness of their soul to obey fearlessly His laws? And all who have taken heed to live a Christian life and seek virtue have trodden the same path; therefore We must walk in this way if We desire either Our own salvation or that of others. Thus it becomes necessary for every one to guard manfully against the allurements of luxury, and since on every side there is so much ostentation in the enjoyment of wealth, the soul must be fortified against the dangerous snares of riches lest straining after what are called the good things of life, which cannot satisfy and soon fade away, the soul should lose "the treasure in heaven which faileth not." Finally, this is matter of deep grief, that free-thought and evil example have so evil an influence in enervating the soul, that many are now almost ashamed of the name of Christian -- a shame which is the sign either of abandoned wickedness or the extreme of cowardice; each detestable and each of the highest injury to man. For what salvation remains for such men, or on what hope can they rely, if they cease to glory in the name of Jesus Christ, if they openly and constantly refuse to mold their lives on the precepts of the gospel? It is the common complaint that the age is barren of brave men. Bring back a Christian code of life, and thereby the minds of men will regain their firmness and constancy. But man's power by itself is not equal to the responsibility of so many duties. As We must ask God for daily bread for the sustenance of the body, so must We pray to Him for strength of soul for its nourishment in virtue. Hence that universal condition and law of life, which We have said is a perpetual battle, brings with it the necessity of prayer to God. For, as is well and wisely said by St. Augustine, pious prayer flies over the world's barriers and calls down the mercy of God from heaven. In order to conquer the emotions of lust, and the snares of the devil, lest we should be led into evil, we are commanded to seek the divine help in the words, "pray that ye enter not into temptation." How much more is this necessary, if we wish to labor for the salvation of others? Christ our Lord, the only begotten Son of God, the source of all grace and virtue, first showed by example what he taught in word: "He passed the whole night in the prayer of God," and when nigh to the sacrifice of his life, "He prayed the longer."
The frailty of nature would be much less fearful, and the moral character would grow weak and enervated with much less ease if that divine precept were not so much disregarded and treated almost with disdain. For God is easily appeased, and desires to aid men, having promised openly to give His grace in abundance to those who ask for it. Nay, He even invites men to ask, and almost insists with most loving words: "I say unto you, ask and it shall be given you: seek, and you shall find: knock, and it shall be opened to you." And that we should have no fear in doing this with confidence and familiarity, he softens His words, comparing Himself to a most loving father who desires nothing so much as the love of his children. "If you then being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children: how much more will your Father who is in heaven, give good things to them that ask Him?" And this will not seem excessive to one who considers it, if the efficaciousness of prayer seemed so great to St. John Chrysostom that he thought it might be compared with the power of God; for as God created all things by His word, so man by prayer obtains what he wills. For nothing has so great a power as prayer, because in it there are certain qualities with which it pleases God to be moved. For in prayer we separate ourselves from things of earth, and filled with the thought of God alone, we become aware of our human weakness; for the same reason we rest in the embrace of our Father, we seek a refuge in the power of our Creator. We approach the Author of all good, as though we wish Him to gaze upon our weak souls, our failing strength, our poverty; and, full of hope, we implore His aid and guardianship, Who alone can give help to the weak and consolation to the infirm and miserable. With such a condition of mind, thinking but little of ourselves, as is fitting, God is greatly inclined to mercy, for God resisteth the proud, but to the humble he giveth grace. Let, then, the habit of prayer be sacred to all; let soul and voice join together in prayer, and let our whole daily life agree together, so that, by keeping the laws of God, the course of our days may seem a continual ascent to Him.
The virtue of which we speak, like the others, is produced and nourished by divine faith; for God is the Author of all true blessings that are to be desired for themselves, as we owe to Him our knowledge of His infinite goodness, and our knowledge of the merits of our Redeemer. But, again, nothing is more fitted for the nourishment of divine faith than the pious habit of prayer, and the need of it at this time is seen by its weakness in most, and its absence in many men. For that virtue is especially the source whereby not only private lives may be amended, but also from which a final judgment may be looked for in those matters which in the daily conflict of men do not permit states to live in peace and security. If the multitude is frenzied with a thirst for excessive liberty, if the inhuman lust of the rich never is satisfied, and if to these be added those evils of the same kind to which We have referred fully above, it will be found that nothing can heal them more completely or fully than Christian faith.
Those possessed of the falsehoods of "libertarianism" must read those words of Pope Leo XIII quoted above over and over again. Naturalism leads to social degeneration. Naturalism cannot be retarded by Protestantism, which is from the devil, or by inter-denominationalism, condemned by Pope Saint Pius X in Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907, but embraced with gusto by the counterfeit church of conciliarism and endorsed very heartily by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI. Naturalism and is logically degenerative social consequences can be retarded only by the conversion of souls and nations to the full and unequivocal embrace of the Catholic Faith. Period. Pope Leo XIII condemns the insidious diabolical lie of "libertarianism" by reminding us that those who use the word "liberty" are frequently possessed only of "self love," a disordered self-love that seeks to justify personal gratification at the expense of pleasing God and growing in sanctity. I can guarantee you, my friends, that the likes of the late Murray Rothbard, an agnostic, was not concerned about personal sanctity or in the necessity of citizens seeking to please God as they voluntarily deny themselves in order to make reparation for their sins, which disorder their own souls and hence the world around them, as the consecrated slaves of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary.
The great saints got home to Heaven without having to be diverted by bread and circuses. Indeed, they got home to Heaven because they were not diverted by bread and circuses, as Pope Pius XI reminded us in Divini Illius Magistri, December 31, 1931:
More than ever nowadays an extended and careful vigilance is necessary, inasmuch as the dangers of moral and religious shipwreck are greater for inexperienced youth. Especially is this true of impious and immoral books, often diabolically circulated at low prices; of the cinema, which multiplies every kind of exhibition; and now also of the radio, which facilitates every kind of communications. These most powerful means of publicity, which can be of great utility for instruction and education when directed by sound principles, are only too often used as an incentive to evil passions and greed for gain. St. Augustine deplored the passion for the shows of the circus which possessed even some Christians of his time, and he dramatically narrates the infatuation for them, fortunately only temporary, of his disciple and friend Alipius. How often today must parents and educators bewail the corruption of youth brought about by the modern theater and the vile book!
The way of true prudence for a Catholic is to follow Our Lady to Calvary each day and to stand there with her at the offering of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass at the hands of a true bishop or a true priest in the catacombs where no concessions are made to conciliarism or to the nonexistent legitimacy of its false shepherds. The way of true prudence for a Catholic is to offer his whole day's activities as a prayer to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary. The way of true prudence for a Catholic is to embrace the Rosary as the means by which he can help to cooperate with the graces won for him by the shedding of every single drop of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ's Most Precious Blood to save his own soul and to make reparation for his own sins and those of the whole world.
Saint Louis Grignion de Montfort put it this way in The Secret of the Rosary:
Dear reader, I promise you that if you practise this devotion and help to spread it you will learn more from the Rosary than from any spiritual book. And what is more, you will have the happiness of being rewarded by Our Lady in accordance with the promises that she made to Saint Dominic, to Blessed Alan de la Roche and to all those who practise and encourage this devotion which is so dear to her. For the Holy Rosary teaches people about the virtues of Jesus and Mary, an leads them to mental prayer and to imitate Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It teaches them to approach the Sacraments often, to genuinely strive after Christian virtues and to do all kinds of good works, as well as interesting them in the many wonderful indulgences which can be gained through the Rosary.
People are often quiet unaware of how rich the Rosary is in indulgences. This is because many priests, when preaching on the Rosary, hardly ever mention indulgences and give rather flowery and popular sermon which excites admiration but scarcely teaches anything.
Be that as it may I shall say no more than to assure you, in the words of Blessed Alan de la Roche, that the Holy Rosary is the root and the storehouse of countless blessings. For through the Holy Rosary:
1. Sinners are forgiven;
2. Souls that thirst are refreshed;
3. Those who are fettered have their bonds broken;
4. Those who weep find happiness;
5. Those who are tempted find peace;
6. The poor find help;
7. Religious are reformed;
8. Those who are ignorant are instructed;
9. The living learn to overcome pride;
10. The dead (the Holy Souls) have their pains eased by suffrages.
One day Our Lady said to Blessed Alan:
"I want people who have a devotion to my Rosary to have my Son's grace and blessing during their lifetime and at their death, and after their death I want them to be freed from all slavery so that they will be like kings wearing crowns and with sceptres in their hands and enjoying eternal glory."
Amen. So be it. (Saint Louis Mary de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, Montfort Publications, 27th Printing, 1992, pp. 85-86.)
Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ put it this way:
Lay not up to yourselves treasures on earth: where the rust, and moth consume, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up to yourselves treasures in heaven: where neither the rust nor moth doth consume, and where thieves do not break through, nor steal.
For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also. (Mt. 6: 19-21.)
Shouldn't we put our treasure in Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart and in her Most Holy Rosary? It's up to each one of us to live in such a way as to please the Most Blessed Trinity with every beat our hearts, consecrated as they must be to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary.
A Catholic who loves God as He has revealed Himself to us exclusively through the one, true Church that He created upon the Rock of Peter, the Pope, is ashamed of sins. He despises each one of them and prays to God to live long enough to make reparation for each one of them as he accuses himself regularly in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance before a true priest and attempts to live more penitentially so as to make one's resolve to amend his life take root deep within his heart and soul.
As a sinner who is very much ashamed of his many sins and who has much for which to make reparation before he dies, I can only exhort the readers of this site to become more and more detached from things of the world and to recognize that Catholicism--and nothing else--is the one and only foundation of personal and social order.
Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?
Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us now and at the hour of our death.
Vivat Christus Rex! Viva Cristo Rey!
Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us.
Saint Joseph, pray for us.
Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.
Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.
Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.
Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.
Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.
Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.
Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us.
Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.
Saint Philip , pray for us.
See also: A Litany of Saints
