Unfortunate Enough To Be A Baby

by Thomas A. Droleskey

Over fifty million million babies have been "unfortunate" enough to have been conceived in their mothers' wombs in the past forty-two years or so since several states began to "liberalizing" existing exceptions in legislation that permitted surgical baby-killing in certain "hard" cases. These fifty million babies have been "unfortunate" enough to have been considered "inconvenient" or a "burden" to their mothers, who acting immorally under unjust and immoral provisions of various state laws prior to the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States of America in the cases of Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, January 22, 1973, chose to kill them, having recourse to abortionists, described this way by the pagan author Juvenal in the Second Century A.D.:

So great is the skill, so powerful the drugs, of the abortionist, paid to murder mankind within the womb. (Juvenal on abortion)

 

Abortionists are paid to murder mankind in the womb. Although crimes that a man commits against God are greater in the hierarchy of evils than those  he commits against his fellow men, it is nevertheless true that willful murder--that is, the direct, intentional taking of any innocent human life from the first moment of conception through all subsequent stages until natural death--is one of the four sins that cry out to Heaven for vengeance. This is, as I have noted in several commentaries this week, a simple fact that many, although far from all, "bishops" in the conciliar hierarchy in the United States of America seem not to understand or to accept as they categorize baby-killing under cover of law as just "one issue" among many concerning Catholics.

Apart from the crimes committed by the conciliarists against God by blaspheming Him as they praise one false religion after another and as they esteem the symbols of those false religions with their own hands, as the currently reigning false "pontiff," Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, has done on several occasions in the past fifty-two months, the direct, intentional taking of innocent preborn human life is a crime that does indeed cry out to Heaven for vengeance as the creative work of God Himself is destroyed and a soul is denied the opportunity to be brought to the Baptismal font to be regenerated as a member of the Catholic Church, outside of which there is no salvation and without which there is no true social order.

Look at the pathetic, blase attitudes expressed by some of the leading "progressives" in the hierarchy of the counterfeit church of conciliarism in the United States of America--and by the editors of L'Osservatore Romano--about the late United States Senator Edward Moore Kennedy's support for baby-killing under cover of the civil law.

Los Angeles Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, who worked with Kennedy in an unsuccessful effort to achieve comprehensive immigration reform in 2007, said "the voiceless, the powerless and the most needy of our citizens have lost a great champion" with the senator's death.

"His deep and personal commitment to causes affecting the poor and needy among us flowed from his deep Catholic faith, and the life and outreach of Jesus Christ," he added.

"Over the years, however, I was never able to bring him to promote fundamental rights for one important group in our society -- the unborn," Cardinal Mahony said. "But he did struggle with this aspect of his Catholic faith, and I was hopeful that at some point he would see that all of his work for the most needy had to begin with a commitment to every person -- born and unborn."

Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl of Washington said Kennedy's "lasting legacies" would stem from "his commitment to alleviating poverty, advocating for the rights of workers and seeking affordable health care."

The archbishop also praised Kennedy for supporting urban Catholic schools through the annual benefit dinner he co-hosted with House Minority Leader Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, from 2003 to 2007.

"As a result, thousands of disadvantaged children in the District of Columbia have had their lives transformed through a quality Catholic education," he said.

Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, the retired archbishop of Washington who was to officiate at burial services for Kennedy Aug. 29 at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, noted that the Massachusetts senator was known as "the lion of the Senate and indeed that's what he was."

"His roar and his zeal for what he believed made a difference in our nation's life," the cardinal said.

Although "we who were his friends" sometimes "got mad at him when he roared on the wrong side of what was important to us, ... we were always touched by his passion for the underdog, for the rights of working people, for better education and for adequate health care for all Americans," he said.

The Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, reported the news of Kennedy's death on an inside page with a brief summary of his career.

"Consistently winning re-election to the Senate, Edward Kennedy was constantly in the front lines of battles such as those for protection of immigrants, arms control and a minimum wage for the less well-off. But unfortunately he also took positions favorable to abortion," it said. (Kennedy praised for public service but faulted for stand on unborn)

 

"But unfortunately he also took positions favorable to abortion"? Unfortunately? Such is the sanguine approach of Gian Maria Vian, the editor of the semi-official Vatican newspaper that has been termed on this site as L'Osservatore Del Naturalista, L'Osservatore del Calvinista, and L'Osservatore Occulto to the daily slaughter of the preborn, both by chemical and surgical means, around the world. "But unfortunately he also took positions favorable to abortion."

Each of the conciliarist officials quoted in the Catholic News Service story just above has been notorious in their abject refusal to discipline those Catholics who, attached to the conciliar structures, have found themselves under their jurisdictions while supporting chemical and surgical baby-killing under cover of the civil law. Roger Mahony has indemnified the careers of such pro-aborts as Anthony Villaraigosa and L. Gray Davis, aiding and abetting as well the statist policies of William Jefferson Blythe Clinton and Barack Hussein Obama.

Donald Wuerl has refused to take disciplinary action against the likes of Nancy Pelosi and John Kerry and the late Edward Kennedy, among so many others, who approach for what purports to be Holy Communion the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service in the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C.. continuing a policy of Theodore "I bless you in the name of Allah" McCarrick himself, when he was the conciliar "archbishop" of Washington, D.C.

McCarrick, when serving as the conciliar "archbishop" of Newark, New Jersey, in January of 1997, permitted the egregious Presbyterian pro-abort named Christine Todd Whitman to have an "ecumenical" "prayer ceremony" at Sacred Heart Cathedral in Newark the night before her second inaugural as Governor of the State of New Jersey. This prompted me to write an article for the printed pages of Christ or Chaos entitled, "What's the Big Deal?", explaining to small readership that McCarrick had utterly no conception of the fact no person can serve as an instrument of common temporal good if he supports moral evils that defy the binding precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law, thus putting into jeopardy the pursuit of man's Last End.

The killing of innocent babies under cover of the civil law is just "one" issue among many to these ultra-progressive conciliar revolutionaries. And even the conciliar 'bishops" who do understand the seriousness of abortion and who claim to be "pro-life" undermine their opposition to baby-killing by promoting the doctrinal apostasies of conciliarism, including the practices of false ecumenism that offend the honor and majesty and glory of God so greatly and in ways that mere mortals like us can hardly comprehend, as they undermine the innocence and purity of the young by mandating explicit classroom instruction in matters pertaining to the Sixth and Ninth Commandments in the schools and "religious education" programs under their supervision. It is impossible to build a "culture of life," as many "conservative" conciliar "bishops" like to claim that they are doing, when one holds and acts upon beliefs that are contrary to the binding precepts contained in the Deposit of Faith and thus deceive souls into believing that erroneous and condemned beliefs and practices can get them to Heaven.

Be that as it may, however, the scattered efforts of some "conservative" bishops in the conciliar hierarchy in the United States of America to oppose baby-killing, albeit inconsistently as none of these "conservative" bishops have publicly criticized former President George Walker Bush for his support of chemical abortifacients (such as the so-called Plan B "emergency" contraceptive) and his support for the direct, intentional taking of innocent preborn human life in certain "hard" cases, and to at least discuss imposing some sanctions on those who had long ago expelled themselves from the maternal bosom of the Catholic Church have come in from some open criticism from some of their more "progressive" brethren" in the conciliar structures, including Michael Sheehan, the conciliar "archbishop" of Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Sheehan, who has a long history of being a bit "mellow," shall we say, about theological error (see Mrs. Stephanie Block's 2003 article, The Archbishop and the Priest in Los Pequenos), decried the efforts of a small "minority" of "bishops" who used "combative tactics" to oppose the invitation extended to the pro-abortion Barack Hussein Obama to speak University of Notre Dame du Lac in Notre Dame, Indiana, on May 17, 2009, and to be awarded an honorary doctorate (see Our Lady Does Not Honor Pro-Aborts and No "Common Ground" Between Truth and Error). Here is what "Archbishop" Sheehan said in an interview with editor-at-large Tom Roberts of the National Catholic Reporter:

A majority of U.S. bishops disagree with the loud tactics of some of their peers in opposing President Barack Obama’s May appearance at the University of Notre Dame, but remain silent because they do not want to engage in a public battle over the issue, according to Archbishop Michael J. Sheehan of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, NM.

In an Aug. 12 interview at archdiocesan headquarters here with NCR, Sheehan took the opportunity to decry the combative tactics of what he described as a minority of U.S. bishops who spoke out against the university’s invitation and issuance of an honorary degree. Many urged the university to rescind the invitation because of Obama’s opposition to criminalizing abortion.

Sheehan said he spoke out strongly against the strategy during the bishops’ meeting in June in San Antonio. According to reports from NCR’s John Allen at the time, some bishops said privately that they were appalled at the conduct of the most vocal opponents and others said the debate had become too narrow and partisan, but the issue was never brought up in public session. The bishops interviewed at the time commented anonymously.

In the Aug. 12 interview, Sheehan said the Catholic community risks isolating itself from the rest of the country and that refusing to talk to a politician or refusing communion because of a difference on a single issue was counterproductive. He described such actions as a “hysterical” reaction.

The comments came in the course of an interview on a range of other topics, most of which will appear in subsequent stories in the ongoing series, In Search of the Emerging Church.

The archbishop was forceful in describing the manner in which church leaders should handle significant disagreements with elected officials. He said his approach – whether dealing with civic officials or church members, relied heavily on collaboration, a technique he said he learned from the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago.

“I believe in collaboration,” he said. “I worked under Cardinal Bernardin and he taught me how to collaborate, how to consult. So I am very committed to the concept called shared responsibility. I think involving people in the process all the way along – my priests, my lay people, I am open to talking to them, working with them. Consultation, collaboration, building bridges not burning them. And you can get so much done when you have collaboration and you build the bridge with other people, whether it’s priests or laypeople, deacons, whoever.”

Bernardin had a reputation as a reconciling force within the bishops’ conference and was often called on to oversee mediation efforts in disagreements within the conference or between U.S. bishops and Rome. He also founded the Common Ground Initiative just before he died. It was an effort to establish a means for Catholics to discuss differences in a civil manner.

Sheehan said that in June he told his fellow bishops, “I don’t feel so badly about Obama going [to Notre Dame] because he’s our president. I said we’ve gotten more done on the pro-life issue in New Mexico by talking to people that don’t agree with us on everything. We got Governor Richardson to sign off on the abolition of the death penalty for New Mexico, which he was in favor of.”

Gov. Bill Richardson, in explaining why he reversed his long-standing support for the death penalty, said he was persuaded in part by discussions with church activists and with Sheehan.

“We talked to him, and we got him on board and got the support in the legislature,” Sheehan said. “But you know, he’s pro-abortion. So? It doesn’t mean we sit and wait, that we sit on the sides and not talk to him. We’ve done so much more by consultation and by building bridges in those areas. And then to make a big scene about Obama – I think a lot of the enemies of the church are delighted to see all that. And I said that I think we don’t want to isolate ourselves from the rest of America by our strong views on abortion and the other things. We need to be building bridges, not burning them.”

Asked if there were any other bishops who agreed with him, he said, “Of course, the majority.”

He was asked why none of the bishops who disagreed with the protests that dominated the news for weeks had spoken up.

“The bishops don’t want to have a battle in public with each other, but I think the majority of bishops in the country didn’t join in with that, would not be in agreement with that approach. It’s well intentioned, but we don’t lose our dignity by being strong in the belief that we have but also talking to others that don’t have our belief. We don’t lose our dignity by that,” he said.

“We’d be like the Amish, you know, kind of isolated from society, if we kept pulling back because of a single issue.”

He acknowledged the loudest voices were creating what appeared to be the Catholic position for the general public.

“Of course. I mean that’s always been the case,” he said. “That’s news, you know.”

He said that in speaking to the other bishops he wondered aloud what was so bad about inviting Obama and giving him a degree. “Last month,” said Sheehan, “the pope made the president of France an honorary canon of St. John Lateran’s -- and he [President Nicolas Sarkozy] is pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage, married invalidly to an actress, and the pope did that. It doesn’t seem that [the Vatican] had quite as big a concern about this matter of Obama and Notre Dame as some of us.”

Noting that the Vatican has consistently been more positive about Obama than some of the leading critics among the U.S. bishops, Sheehan said, “The Vatican is a little more diplomatically sensitive. But you’ve got to have the big picture.”

He also said given Obama’s association as a young man with priests and nuns during his time as a community organizer on Chicago’s South Side that the “issues of social justice that we teach and preach would resonate in his own work and in his own mind.”

If Sheehan disagreed with the tactics of some of his fellow bishops, he believes at least that Obama may have “a greater awareness now of how passionately and how deeply the church people feel” about abortion. “I think he probably had to come to grips with it in a way that, I suspect, has had a positive effect.”

He said the bishops might revisit a controversial statement on Catholic politicians but he said he opposes withholding communion based partly on the church’s own historic experience. Making reference to Giuseppi Garibaldi, who campaigned to unify Italy in the mid 1800s and who advocated abolition of the papacy, Sheehan said the church then said Catholics would be excommunicated or refused communion if they voted for him. “Well, it didn’t work.”

“Using sanctions – you have to be very careful about doing that.” He said he was cautioned in seminary to be very careful when even considering refusing communion to someone. “And I’ve had occasions where I was wondering whether I should give communion to this person who had been in a quote bad marriage. I gave him communion and after Mass he came up to me and said Archbishop, I have such good news. Our marriage case was settled.” With a bit of emotion, Sheehan said, “And if I would have refused him communion.

“You have to be very careful. The Vatican doesn’t do these big sanctions, you’re out of the church if you vote this way. They’ve tried it, it doesn’t work, and I try to learn from what the Vatican has to teach and to use that myself,” he said. “The primary responsibility for someone receiving communion is the person himself or herself and their conscience, to come forward to receive. The priest shouldn’t be like a watchdog, looking around and finding out who’s unworthy.”

Asked if he was concerned about reaction from those who seemed to consider opposition to Obama’s appearance at Notre Dame or refusing communion to a politician who differed from the church’s view on abortion strategy as proof of orthodox Catholicism, he responded:

“I seek to teach, to teach, and not to use sanctions. To teach, to talk to people. Like I say, we got more done this year with the state legislature by connecting with people and by saying our piece in a hopefully reasonable, and not an emotional and hysterical, way. Hysterical activity doesn’t bear fruit, and there’s been some hysteria in these areas.” (Bishop decries 'combative tactics' of a minority of U.S. bishops)

 

That it is only a "minority" of conciliar "bishops" in the United States of America have enough residue of the sensus Catholicus to recognize baby-killing as a crime against God and man speaks volumes about the state of apostasy and betrayal that exists in the counterfeit church of conciliarism, an amalgam of different beliefs that is more analogous to the "high church, low church" amalgamation of beliefs and practices that is the Anglican sect than it is even of an ape of the Catholic Church herself. It is however, very telling that Michael Sheehan, the conciliar "archbishop" of Albuquerque, New Mexico, made advertence to Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's honoring the reprobate President of the France's Fifth Republic, Nicholas Sarkozy, as a canon of the Basilica di San Giovanni Laterano, the cathedral of a true pope in his capacity as the Bishop of Rome. Sheehan does indeed have a very apt point in referring to Ratzinger/Benedict's honoring a Catholic public official who is pro-abortion and pro-perversity. Why should he, Sheehan, take a different stand that the "pope"? (See Continuing to Knight Infidels and Respect Those Who Break the First Commandment? Respect Those Who Break the Fifth Commandment. For Ratzinger/Benedict's own loss of the sense of the horror of personal sin, see Having No Regard for the Horror of Personal Sin.)

Michael Sheehan's sophistries on other points made in his interview with Tom Roberts of the National Catholic Reporter can be dealt with rather summarily:

A single issue? Here is what Pope Pius XI had to say to those in public life, both Catholics and non-Catholics alike, who dared to support the destruction of the innocent preborn in their mothers' wombs under cover of the civil law:

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

 

God is not as sanguine, Michael Sheehan, as you are about the daily slaughter of the preborn under the cover of the civil law.

A single issue? It is impossible to pursue the common temporal good when one supports and promote things that are contrary to the peace and happiness of eternity:

The more closely the temporal power of a nation aligns itself with the spiritual, and the more it fosters and promotes the latter, by so much the more it contributes to the conservation of the commonwealth. For it is the aim of the ecclesiastical authority by the use of spiritual means, to form good Christians in accordance with its own particular end and object; and in doing this it helps at the same time to form good citizens, and prepares them to meet their obligations as members of a civil society. This follows of necessity because in the City of God, the Holy Roman Catholic Church, a good citizen and an upright man are absolutely one and the same thing. How grave therefore is the error of those who separate things so closely united, and who think that they can produce good citizens by ways and methods other than those which make for the formation of good Christians. For, let human prudence say what it likes and reason as it pleases, it is impossible to produce true temporal peace and tranquillity by things repugnant or opposed to the peace and happiness of eternity. (Silvio Cardinal Antoniano, quoted by Pope Pius XI in Divini Illius Magistri, December 31, 1929.)

 

A single issue? Pope Saint Pius X, reiterating the consistent teaching of the Catholic Church, explained that the civil state has an obligation to aid man in the pursuit of his Last End. How can this be done when Catholics, of all people, in public life promote the very thing that caused Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to suffer in His Sacred Humanity during His Passion and Death and that caused His Most Blessed Mother's Immaculate Heart to be pierced through and through with those Seven Swords of Sorrow?

That the State must be separated from the Church is a thesis absolutely false, a most pernicious error. Based, as it is, on the principle that the State must not recognize any religious cult, it is in the first place guilty of a great injustice to God; for the Creator of man is also the Founder of human societies, and preserves their existence as He preserves our own. We owe Him, therefore, not only a private cult, but a public and social worship to honor Him. Besides, this thesis is an obvious negation of the supernatural order. It limits the action of the State to the pursuit of public prosperity during this life only, which is but the proximate object of political societies; and it occupies itself in no fashion (on the plea that this is foreign to it) with their ultimate object which is man's eternal happiness after this short life shall have run its course. But as the present order of things is temporary and subordinated to the conquest of man's supreme and absolute welfare, it follows that the civil power must not only place no obstacle in the way of this conquest, but must aid us in effecting it. (Pope Saint Pius X, Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906.)

 

The Catholic Church's sanctions against Giuseppe Garibaldi did not work? So what? Since when does the defense of truth depend upon the rejection of truth by those steeped in their own stubborn pride and refusal to bend to the authority of Christ the King as it is exercised by the Church that He Himself founded upon the Rock of Peter, the Pope? If the defense of truth depended on the likelihood of a favorable outcome, then Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ would never have preached His Eucharistic Discourse, recorded in Chapter Six of the Gospel According to Saint John, that resulted in His being rejected by most of those who had followed Him up to that point even after they had witnessed the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes with their eyes. Our Lord asked the Apostles if they were going to leave Him as well:

And he said: Therefore did I say to you, that no man can come to me, unless it be given him by my Father. After this many of his disciples went back; and walked no more with him. Then Jesus said to the twelve: Will you also go away? And Simon Peter answered him: Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life. And we have believed and have known, that thou art the Christ, the Son of God. (John 6: 66-70.)

 

Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is God. He knows all things. He knew the the Redemptive Act He offered up to His Co-Eternal and Co-Equal Father on the wood of the Holy Cross in atonement for our sins (a little truth rejected by your fellow "archbishop," Robert Zollitsch, for your information, "Archbishop" Sheehan) would profit a relatively few number of souls (see The Little Number of Those Who are Saved, by Saint Leonard of Port Maurice). Did that deter Him from undertaking His Passion and Death so as to redeem us and to thus make it possible for us to know an unending Easter Sunday of glory in Paradise?

Michael Sheehan counts as "proof" for the use of "persuasion" rather than "combative tactics" in dealing with Catholics in public life who dissent from the teaching of the Catholic Church the "conversion" of Bill Richardson, the Catholic pro-abortion Governor of the State of New Mexico, from being in favor of the death penalty to being opposed to it. Unfortunately for Michael Sheehan, however, the death penalty is part of Catholic teaching (see Roman Catechism), and its rejection by the counterfeit church of conciliarism is just another proof of its apostate nature. Innocent babies, who are guilty of nothing, are put to death brutally under cover of the civil law every day in the United States of America and around the world. A priority of a true Catholic bishop would be to remind Catholics in public life that they cannot support the imposition of the death penalty upon the innocent preborn and remain a Catholic in good standing.

It is the duty of a Catholic bishop to confront and eradicate error as best as he is able in cooperation with the graces sent to him through Our Lady's loving hands:

Consequently, you who are the salt of the earth, guardians and shepherds of the Lord's flock, whose business it is to fight the battles of the Lord, arise and gird on your sword, which is the word of God, and expel this foul contagion from your lands. How long are we to ignore the common insult to faith and Church? Let the words of Bernard arouse us like a lament of the spouse of Christ: "Of old was it foretold and the time of fulfillment is now at hand: Behold, in peace is my sorrow most sorrowful. It was sorrowful first when the martyrs died; afterwards it was more sorrowful in the fight with the heretics and now it is most sorrowful in the conduct of the members of the household.... The Church is struck within and so in peace is my sorrow most sorrowful. But what peace? There is peace and there is no peace. There is peace from the pagans and peace from the heretics, but no peace from the children. At that time the voice will lament: Sons did I rear and exalt, but they despised me. They despised me and defiled me by a bad life, base gain, evil traffic, and business conducted in the dark." Who can hear these tearful complaints of our most holy mother without feeling a strong urge to devote all his energy and effort to the Church, as he has promised? Therefore cast out the old leaven, remove the evil from your midst. Forcefully and carefully banish poisonous books from the eyes of your flock, and at once courageously set apart those who have been infected, to prevent them harming the rest. The holy Pope Leo used to say, "We can rule those entrusted to us only by pursuing with zeal for the Lord's faith those who destroy and those who are destroyed and by cutting them off from sound minds with the utmost severity to prevent the plague spreading." In doing this We exhort and advise you to be all of one mind and in harmony as you strive for the same object, just as the Church has one faith, one baptism, and one spirit. As you are joined together in the hierarchy, so you should unite equally with virtue and desire.

The affair is of the greatest importance since it concerns the Catholic faith, the purity of the Church, the teaching of the saints, the peace of the empire, and the safety of nations. Since it concerns the entire body of the Church, it is a special concern of yours because you are called to share in Our pastoral concern, and the purity of the faith is particularly entrusted to your watchfulness. "Now therefore, Brothers, since you are overseers among God's people and their soul depends on you, raise their hearts to your utterance," that they may stand fast in faith and achieve the rest which is prepared for believers only. Beseech, accuse, correct, rebuke and fear not: for ill-judged silence leaves in their error those who could be taught, and this is most harmful both to them and to you who should have dispelled the error. The holy Church is powerfully refreshed in the truth as it struggles zealously for the truth. In this divine work you should not fear either the force or favor of your enemies. The bishop should not fear since the anointing of the Holy Spirit has strengthened him: the shepherd should not be afraid since the prince of pastors has taught him by his own example to despise life itself for the safety of his flock: the cowardice and depression of the hireling should not dwell in a bishop's heart. Our great predecessor Gregory, in instructing the heads of the churches, said with his usual excellence: "Often imprudent guides in their fear of losing human favor are afraid to speak the right freely. As the word of truth has it, they guard their flock not with a shepherd's zeal but as hirelings do, since they flee when the wolf approaches by hiding themselves in silence....

A shepherd fearing to speak the right is simply a man retreating by keeping silent." But if the wicked enemy of the human race, the better to frustrate your efforts, ever brings it about that a plague of epidemic proportions is hidden from the religious powers of the world, please do not be terrified but walk in God's house in harmony, with prayer, and in truth, the three arms of our service. Remember that when the people of Juda were defiled, the best means of purification was the public reading to all, from the least to the greatest, of the book of the law lately found by the priest Helcias in the Lord's temple; at once the whole people agreed to destroy the abominations and seal a covenant in the Lord's presence to follow after the Lord and observe His precepts, testimonies and ceremonies with their whole heart and soul." For the same reason Josaphat sent priests and Levites to bring the book of the law throughout the cities of Juda and to teach the people. The proclamation of the divine word has been entrusted to your faith by divine, not human, authority. So assemble your people and preach to them the gospel of Jesus Christ. From that divine source and heavenly teaching draw draughts of true philosophy for your flock. Persuade them that subjects ought to keep faith and show obedience to those who by God's ordering lead and rule them. To those who are devoted to the ministry of the Church, give proofs of faith, continence, sobriety, knowledge, and liberality, that they may please Him to whom they have proved themselves and boast only of what is serious, moderate, and religious. But above all kindle in the minds of everyone that love for one another which Christ the Lord so often and so specifically praised. For this is the one sign of Christians and the bond of perfection. (Pope Pius VI, Inscrutabile, December 25, 1775.)

 

Contrast the words of a true pope, Pope Pius VI, with those of a false "bishop," Michael Sheehan, concerning how to deal with those who dissent from the teaching of the Catholic Church:

We can rule those entrusted to us only by pursuing with zeal for the Lord's faith those who destroy and those who are destroyed and by cutting them off from sound minds with the utmost severity to prevent the plague spreading.  (Pope Pius VI, Inscrutabile, December 25, 1775.)

“I seek to teach, to teach, and not to use sanctions. To teach, to talk to people. Like I say, we got more done this year with the state legislature by connecting with people and by saying our piece in a hopefully reasonable, and not an emotional and hysterical, way. Hysterical activity doesn’t bear fruit, and there’s been some hysteria in these areas.” (Bishop decries 'combative tactics' of a minority of U.S. bishops)

 

This is the difference between fidelity and apostasy, between Catholicism and conciliarism.

There is no conflict between persuasion and discipline. Holy Mother Church is a loving mother. She uses exhortation to convince her wayward children of their errors. Her patience, however, is not infinite in the face of grave and immediate threats to the innocent whose very lives are threatened, temporally and eternally, by a course of action contrary to the binding precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law. To take any action that has as its sole and immediate end the death of an innocent human being requires immediate action to save those lives and to instruct the faithful as to the gravity of the crimes committed against them.

The Catholic Church does not hold back her staff of discipline for forty years as over fifty million innocent babies are put to death under cover of the civil law and as millions more are killed are as a result of chemical abortifacients. She applies the remedial medicine of discipline both as a means of just punishment upon malefactors in order to lead them back to the Barque of Peter from which they have expelled themselves by means of their support various heresies and/or grave moral evils.

Michael Sheehan, the Catholic Church does not wait for forty years to discipline the likes of Edward Moore Kennedy and other of your fellow apostate Catholics.

Perhaps Saint John the Baptist was wrong, Michael Sheehan, to use combative efforts with Herod the Tetrarch to get him to quit his bigamous and adulterous marriage to his brother Philip's wife, Herodias?

For Herod feared John, knowing him to be a just and holy man: and kept him, and when he heard him, did many things: and he heard him willingly.

And when a convenient day was come, Herod made a supper for his birthday, for the princes, and tribunes, and chief men of Galilee. And when the daughter of the same Herodias had come in, and had danced, and pleased Herod, and them that were at table with him, the king said to the damsel: Ask of me what thou wilt, and I will give it thee. And he swore to her: Whatsoever thou shalt ask I will give thee, though it be the half of my kingdom. Who when she was gone out, said to her mother, What shall I ask? But she said: The head of John the Baptist. And when she was come in immediately with haste to the king, she asked, saying: I will that forthwith thou give me in a dish, the head of John the Baptist.

And the king was struck sad. Yet because of his oath, and because of them that were with him at table, he would not displease her: But sending an executioner, he commanded that his head should be brought in a dish. And he beheaded him in the prison, and brought his head in a dish: and gave it to the damsel, and the damsel gave it to her mother. Which his disciples hearing came, and took his body, and laid it in a tomb. And the apostles coming together unto Jesus, related to him all things that they had done and taught. (Mk. 6. 20-30)

 

Herod the Tetrarch consented to the demands of his niece and step-daughter Salome to accede to the demand his sister-in-law and wife Herodias had made through for the head of Saint John the Baptist after she had performed a dance for him on his birthday. His crime? Saint John the Baptist dared to speak truth to power, and for that he lost his head.

No, Michael Sheehan, Catholics do not have an "outcome-based approach" to speaking the truths of the Holy Faith.

Poor King Herod the Tetrarch. He could have been "knighted" by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI if only he could have stuck around for two millennia. Why not a posthumous "knighting" of both Herods? 

The approach of Michael Sheehan is one that pleases the enemies of the Faith. How many Catholics in public life have renounced support for baby-killing as a result of the "gentle" approach of the conciliar 'bishops" who are not combative? Perhaps a few, although I am not aware of any by name. But, yes, there might be a few.

As to the rest? They are permitted to go to their graves openly promoting the slaughter of the preborn without being forced to abjure their errors in order to be given what purports to be, albeit falsely, a "Catholic" funeral after they have died. It is a false charity, a false compassion that seek not to impose the healing balm of correction with the rod, if necessary, so as to save the sinner from the fires of Hell and to educate the faithful who are scandalized and/or encouraged by the refusal of the public sinner to repent of his ways.

It is this false charity and false compassion that indemnified Edward Moore Kennedy until he died. As noted two days ago, perhaps the late senator wrote a letter to abjure his errors. Perhaps this letter will be read in his "Mass of Christian Burial" today. Perhaps. Edward Moore Kennedy, however, was permitted to spend his public life in the promotion of grave evils without anyone in the conciliar structures daring to warn him publicly that he risked the fires of Hell for all eternity if he did not repent of the evil that he promoted before he died.

And while God alone knows the state of a persons's soul at the moment of death, these words of Saint Paul the Apostle should give each us, sinners that we are who have much for which to make reparation to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary

Wherefore, my dearly beloved, (as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but much more now in my absence,) with fear and trembling work out your salvation. (Phil. 2: 12.)

 

As we continue with the ninth week of Bishop Robert F. McKenna's Rosary Crusade-- and as we pray to Saint Peregrine for this valiant true bishop of Holy Mother Church, may each Rosary that we pray, as many each day as our states-in-life permit, help us to be more and more united to the Cross of her Divine Son, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, that we will consider it our privilege to suffer whatever calumny we must in order to flee from the apostates in the counterfeit church of conciliarism as we seek out the Sacraments from true bishops and true priests who make no concessions to conciliarism or to the "legitimacy" of the likes of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and Michael Sheehan, praying always, for their conversion as we pray first and foremost to be converted from our own many sins.

Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us now and at the hour of our deaths. Amen.

 

Vivat Christus Rex! Viva Cristo Rey!

Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?

Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon!

Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us now and at the hour of our death.

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, especially on your feast day today!

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

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

See also: A Litany of Saints