From National Review:

The recent Health and Human Services mandate and the ensuing debate appear to have pitted religious-liberty claims against women’s health. But because religious leaders (rightly) focused on the need for a religious exemption, it may appear to some observers that they are unable to articulate a reasoned and weighty response to the administration’s claim that contraceptives are essential to women’s health and well-being.

The Obama administration is wrong on this score as well, and the substantive case needs to be made: The contraceptive revolution has failed to be the unmitigated boon to women or to society that it was hyped up to be.

For the past 50 years, the Pill has demonstrably assisted women — especially college-educated, career-minded women — in the timing of pregnancies and the delay of marriage. But the Pill also ushered in an era of unprecedented (and, as things turned out, unwarranted) confidence that sex could be pursued without risk — most notably, outside of long-term committed relationships.

The Pill, together with abortion as backup, appeared to provide full insurance against pregnancy risks. But as economists well know, full insurance tends to induce greater risk-taking: As people perceive sex to be safer, they pursue more of it. This applies especially to people who would otherwise be most vulnerable to the risks of unwanted pregnancy: the young, the unmarried, and those unable to care for a child. While a tight causal argument is difficult to make, correlations alone do not augur in favor of the Pill: The rapidly increasing sexual activity of the Pill era correlates with a staggering increase in non-marital births — less than 5 percent of births in 1960 were to unmarried mothers, compared with roughly 40 percent today. A counterintuitive result, perhaps, but a fairly human one nonetheless.

And this points to an unresolved difficulty with the contraceptive revolution, which was supposed to serve women above all: Women on the whole disproportionately bear the burden of the new sexual regime. They are expected to dose themselves with a Group 1 carcinogen for approximately two-thirds of their fertile years. They sustain greater emotional costs from casual sex. They are at greater risk of contracting STDs and disproportionately suffer from their long-term consequences, such as cervical cancer and fertility loss.And even after 50 years with the Pill, as many as half of all pregnancies are still unintended. Women, not men, must make the heart-wrenching choice between abortion, reckoned a tragic outcome even by its supporters, and bearing a child with little to no paternal support. After all, since children were negotiated out of the bargain by the availability of contraception and abortion, men have secured a strong rationale to simply ignore or reject pregnancies that result from uncommitted sexual relations. Nobel-laureate economist George Akerlof predicted nearly two decades ago that this would lead directly to the feminization of poverty, as it ruefully has.

These traumas take their toll. A stunning paper by leading labor economists Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers documented recently that women’s self-reported happiness has declined both overall, and relative to that of men, since the early 1970s. Where women used to report higher happiness than men, they now report less. Stevenson and Wolfers ask, “Did men garner a disproportionate share of the benefits of the women’s movement?” Good question indeed. One may well wonder if the bargain advocated by the feminist elites has made much sense in the end: Were gains for elite women purchased with the currency of a new sexual ethic that has damaged women more generally?

Contrary to a popular misconception, the alternative to the contraceptive revolution is not to roll back the clock on women’s advancement, and certainly not to promote a physically and emotionally taxing outcome in which women have as many children as biologically possible. Rather, the alternative to contraception is to respect biological asymmetry, heal the wound between the sexes, and expect more from men.

Authentic sexual equality requires that men understand with their bodies (as women do) the procreative potential of the sexual act. And this is exactly what natural methods of family planning do. By frequenting sex only during infertile times when a child is unwanted, men learn to coordinate their desires for intimacy with the natural rhythms of the female body. Feminist scholar and theologian Angela Franks notes that “[this] is unheard of in a society in which male desire appears to set the guidelines — especially in the ‘hook-up’ culture. Indeed, such a reorientation ofdesire is more revolutionary than any secular feminist project.” Those who practice this approach to family planning report that its use tends to make husbands more sensitive to the sexual and emotional needs of their wives — a sensitivity that many women have long found wanting.

And while the Catholic Church is a leading promoter of natural family planning, this isn’t just good for Catholic women. Non-Catholics are increasingly discovering the advantages of a more organic, pharmaceutical-free method of family planning, as evidenced by the success of Toni Weschler’s Taking Charge of Your Fertility.Not only are natural methods becoming easier to use with the help of fertility monitors, online tools, and even apps, such methods help properly trained physicians to successfully detect and treat PMS, polycystic ovarian syndrome, infertility, and other medical conditions. Practiced faithfully — a caveat that applies to all methods of family planning — natural methods are just as effective as the Pill. As advocates often remark, this isn’t your grandmother’s rhythm method.

The feminist movement asked men for very little. We should ask them for much more. Though religious leaders can (and should) win the conscience-exemption argument on its own terms, we ought not hesitate to confront the administration’s spurious public-health claim. The suffering borne by women and children in the wake of the contraceptive revolution should make us impatient to articulate that Catholic teaching is not against reason, modernity, or women. It’s prophetic, pro-woman — and about time.

— Erika Bachiochi is an author whose most recent publications include Women, Sex & the Church: A Case for Catholic Teaching (2010). Catherine R. Pakaluk is an economist at the Stein Center for Social Research at Ave Maria University.

From Archdiocese of Washington:

It is the first day, back to work for many of us after some delightful holy days, where we have been able to reflect on eternal and heavenly realities.

And in this New Year we are going to have many blessings but also some important challenges. Among the challenges we will continue to face and must battle are significant and persistent threats to religious liberty. These issues affect not only Catholics, but people of many religious background. However, the Catholic Church is particularly targeted and threatened because we have stood so vocally and firmly in opposition to many cultural problems in America such as Abortion, Embryonic Stem Cell research, the Gay rights agenda, Gay “marriage,” and so forth.

As the wider American culture continues to move away from Biblical teachings and norms, our Catholic adherence to this age-old wisdom has come to be seen by many as obnoxious, and we are considered to be an influence which must be strongly withstood. Rather than understand our concerns as a principled stance rooted in Biblical norms that we cannot simply set aside, many, in the wider culture, have chosen to describe our stance as bigoted, reactionary, hateful, and broadly intolerant.

As such, many see the repudiation of our religious rights and liberty as righteous and as a vindication of their cultural agenda. But the rejoicing in some circles and the active attempt by some to suppress our religious liberty is short-sighted. For, if the Government can deny the liberty of one group, all are threatened. If the Government can attempt to legally force a large segment of the US population to act contrary to their conscience, no other segment is safe either.

As we have discussed before, the threat to religious liberty is both real and growing. This New Year of 2012 will be a critical year for religious liberty issues since a number of important issues are on the table.

Over the Christmas Octave, all priests in the Archdiocese received a letter of concern from Cardinal Wuerl which stated in part:

We have all heard much over the past few years about the cause of reforming health care in the United States. Until now, federal law has never prevented Catholic institutions like the Archdiocese of Washington from providing for the needs of their employees with a health plan that is consistent with Catholic moral teachings. However, the Department of Health and Human Services is currently considering adopting regulations that would threaten that freedom.

Under the proposed HHS regulations, virtually all Catholic hospitals, elementary and secondary schools, colleges and universities, and charitable organizations would be required to provide coverage for sterilization procedures and contraception, including drugs that may induce abortions, unless they stop hiring and stop serving non-Catholics.

The letter goes on to reference A Letter from Catholic Leaders and Health Care Professionals which expresses grave concern that the HHS mandates in the new Healthcare legislation are too sweeping and contain no real religious exemption. The letter states in part:

As written, the [HHS] rule will force Catholic organizations that play a vital role in providing health care and other needed services either to violate their conscience or severely curtail those services. This would harm both religious freedom and access to health care.

The HHS mandate puts many faith-based organizations and individuals in an untenable position. But it also harms society as a whole by undermining a long American tradition of respect for religious liberty and freedom of conscience. In a pluralistic society, our health care system should respect the religious and ethical convictions of all. We ask Congress, the Administration, and our fellow Americans to acknowledge this truth and work with us to reform the law accordingly.

Real and subtle – Please understand that the threats to our religious Liberty are very real, but also, at times, subtle.  For much of it is carried out in incremental ways, hidden in the deeper details of legislation, and emerging from strict interpretations of various judges. As such, it requires the Church and other religious organizations to fight on multiple fronts in a wearying number of, often arcane but very significant, legal minutia.

At some level, the erosion of religious liberty is happening simply due to the repeated quality of the multiple legal maneuvers. The Church and other religious entities may win an individual battle in one case, only to have to face multiple appeals and similar battles in other jurisdictions.

Keeping the faithful organized and alert, and having the legal and financial resources in place to meet every challenge is difficult,  and this is part of the erosive technique of the extreme secularists.

Here are just some recent examples of the kinds of cases and issues that emerge:

1. In 2009 the Baltimore City Council passed a bill regulating the speech of pro-life pregnancy centers by requiring them to post a sign listing services they do not provide (abortion and contraception) or face a daily fine. Abortion clinics and other such pro-choice centers faced no similar requirement. (Montgomery County soon approved a similar regulation. The ordinance has been declared unconstitutional by a federal court but even though the  Courts may overturn these sorts of laws, such legal actions place a huge time and financial burden on these charitable organizations and are a distraction from their mission.
2. 600 Catholic  hospitals are finding themselves under increased scrutiny since they provide care in accordance with Catholic religious  beliefs. The American Civil Liberties Union has asked the federal government to investigate Catholic hospitals for declining to provide abortion and emergency contraception. The ACLU alleges that Catholic hospitals are thus violating federal laws by adhering to their religious beliefs.
3. The District of Columbia Government informed Catholic Charities that it would no longer be an eligible foster care and adoption partner. since, as a Catholic organization, Catholic Charities was devoted to placing children in homes with both a mother and a father. Moreover, when District residents filed an appeal to bring the issue of marriage before voters, so that they could have a voice in the debate, their request was repeatedly denied by the D.C. Board of Elections.
   
4. Last November the same thing happened in Illinois. The Church there would have been required to provide adoption services to same-sex couples, based on a civil union law that had been passed. “The decision not to pursue further appeals was reached with great reluctance, but was necessitated by the fact that the State of Illinois made it financially impossible for Catholic agencies to continue to provide these services due to the legal cost of continuing the battle.
5. There has also been a growing trend of government intrusion into the institutional and administrative life of the Church. One of the most disturbing examples of this was in 2009, when a bill was introduced in the Connecticut legislature that would have allowed the state of Connecticut to mandate the structure and organization of Catholic parishes (and only Catholic parishes; it applied to no other denominations). The measure, which ultimately failed, would have removed many administrative and pastoral responsibilities from the pastor and placed them instead in the hands of committees whose membership was defined by the state legislature. Here too, though we won, that such an intrusive principle could see the light of day was disturbing and to fight it cost the Church and Catholics a huge amount of time and money.
   
6. Christians cannot speak publicly of their values? Medina Valley Independent School District, allows the class valedictorian to deliver a graduation address. The speech is written by the student and delivered in his or her own name as a personal reflection on what has helped them attain to their success and to give an encouraging word to fellow students. Last year,  valedictorian, Angela Hildenbrand, a Bible-believing Christian, was valedictorian. Many knew that Angela would give thanks to God for blessing her work as a student, and that she might offer a prayer. Alleging that hearing a prayer would cause serious and irreparable harm, lawyers at “Americans United for the Separation of Church and State” (AUSCS) filed suit for an agnostic family. A federal judge….issued an order that no prayers could be offered, and also that Angela could not utter certain words in her speech, including the phrase “bow your heads” or the specific words “prayer” or “amen.” The reality is, the judge’s order, not a prayer Angela might offer in her speech, violated the First Amendment. A student is given the stage to speak about her values and priorities and to thank whomever she wishes for helping her succeed in school. Because she’s a private citizen (not a government agent), her speech is protected by the First Amendment Free Speech Clause. For government, (including a judge), to censor her private speech is unconstitutional. On June 4, the Fifth Circuit federal appeals court granted an emergency motion to reverse the district judge.
7. Grants denied on Religious Grounds – In 2008 the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts brought suit against the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, seeking to eliminate a grant to programs that aid victims of human trafficking. Because Catholic programs don’t refer for abortions, the ACLU alleged that public support amounts to the establishment of religion. The Obama Justice Department defended the grant in court. But last month, HHS abruptly ended the funding.
8. And again – It is now standard procedure in the Obama administration to deny funding to some Catholic programs based solely on their pro-life beliefs. [4]
9. The latest and most pervasive threat is the New HHS law described above.

At the beginning of a New Year, please take these threats seriously. The extreme secularists presume they can simply wear us down by their repeated and numerous legal maneuverings. And, frankly, they may be right, unless people like you and me are vigilant and unflinching in supporting the Church as she battles these attacks.

And don’t be too sanguine about how we should be willing to endure persecution. We should, butthat does not mean we simply surrender our Constitutional rights at the door and let secularists, and proponents of the cultural revolution isolate us. We have every Constitutional right that any American does and we cannot simply let the Church be silenced by either ignoring the problem or minimizing it.

Are you ready for 2012? There is an important Battle underway. Where do you stand? What will you do? To quote Martin Luther King Jr., “My daddy always said, ‘If you find a good fight, get in it.’” Well this is a good fight, a necessary fight. Get in it.

Please go to the Bishop’s website and find more ways you can become informed and join the struggle to protect religious liberty: The USCCB Website on Conscience and Religious Liberty

By Matt C. Abbott:

The following is a reprint of a chapter (minus endnotes) from Catholic attorney/scholar Peter B. Kelly’s book Cleansing Fire The chapter contains substantial information from another book: Index of Leading Catholic Indicators: The Church since Vatican II, authored by Kenneth C. Jones.

Chapter 38 

A Statistical Analysis

“The message (of the Third Secret of Fatima) was not to be opened before 1960. I asked Lucy: ‘Why this date?’ And she answered me: ‘Because then it will be clearer (mais claro).’ This made me think that the message was prophetic in tone, precisely because the prophesies, as we see in Sacred Scripture, are covered with a veil of mystery. … In 1960, she said, the message would be clearer.” -Cardinal Ottaviani (speaking about the Third Secret of Fatima at the great hall of the Antonianum, Pontifical Marian Academy, February 11, 1967)

“The devil is in the process of engaging in a decisive battle with the Virgin. And the devil knows what it is that most offends God and which in a short space of time will gain for him the greatest number of souls. Thus the devil does everything to overcome souls consecrated to God because in this way, the devil will succeed in leaving the souls of the faithful abandoned by their leaders, and thereby the more easily will he seize them.” -Sister Lucy’s disclosures to Father Fuentes

“What some refer to as a ‘vocations crisis’ is, rather, one of the many fruits of the Second Vatican Council, a sign of God’s deep love for the Church, and an invitation to a more creative and effective ordering of gifts and energy in the Body of Christ.” -Cardinal Roger Mahony of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, Holy Thursday, April 20, 2000.

“Without priests the sacramental nature of the Church will disappear. We’ll become a Protestant church without the sacraments.” -Cardinal Godfried Daneels, London Catholic Times, May, 2000.

“Certainly the results (of Vatican II) seem cruelly opposed to the expectations of everyone, beginning with those of Pope John XXIII and then of Pope Paul VI: expected was a new Catholic unity and instead we have been exposed to dissension which, to use the words of Pope Paul VI, seems to have gone from self-criticism to self-destruction. Expected was a new enthusiasm, and many wound up discouraged and bored. Expected was a great step forward, instead we find ourselves faced with a progressive process of decadence which has developed for the most part under the sign of a calling back to the Council, and has therefore contributed to discrediting it for many. The net result therefore seems negative. I am repeating here what I said ten years after the conclusion of the work: it is incontrovertible that this period has definitely been unfavorable for the Catholic Church.” -Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, 1984.

“It’s chic to declare yourself a Protestant in France these days. In intellectual circles, it is also chic to reveal yourself as a Jew. But if you admit to being a Roman Catholic, you’ll trigger howls of derisive laughter.” -Sociologist Daniele Hervieu-Leger, UPI, March 13, 2001.

“And will not God revenge his elect who cry to him day and night? And will he have patience in their regard? I say to you that he will quickly revenge them. But yet the Son of man, when he cometh, shall he find, think you, faith on earth?” -Luke 18:7-8

“The dechristianization of Europe is a reality.” -Cardinal Paul Poupard, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, Le Spectacle du Monde, January, 2000.

RESEARCH MEMO

Re: Statistical Analysis of the Post-Vatican II Collapse of the Catholic Church in America

Source: Jones, Kenneth C.: Index of Leading Catholic Indicators: The Church Since Vatican II

Roman Catholic Books, P. O. Box 2286, Fort Collins, CO 80522-2286. (Original ISBN: 0-9728688-0-1)

In the introduction to his book, Kenneth Jones begins by accurately explaining that when Pope John XXIII began his Second Vatican Council in 1962, the American Catholic Church “was in the midst of an unprecedented period of growth.” He reports that “bishops were ordaining record numbers of priests and building scores of seminaries to handle the surge in vocations. Young women by the thousands gave up lives of comfort for the austerity of the convent. These nuns taught millions of students in the huge system of parochial and private schools. The ranks of Catholics swelled as parents brought in their babies for baptism and adult converts flocked to the Church. Lines outside the confessional were long, and by some estimates three quarters of the faithful went to Mass every Sunday.”

There is an old American proverb that is still in constant use because it is both practical and profound. The saying is used to both preserve successes and avoid unnecessary failures on both a large and small scale. If only Pope John XXIII had chosen to reject those Modernist voices looking for a Conciliar opportunity to derail the efficient and on-time train of Roman Catholicism by simply reciting, with the Italian accent of a practical peasant: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

John XXIII was dubbed “Good” Pope John by his manipulators and Modernist “puppet masters” — as if to distinguish him from his saintly, sophisticated and uncompromising predecessors who the Modernists must have considered “bad” because they saw their corrupting progressive agendas for what they were.

Poor Pope John! He appeared to have been selected by the Modernists in the conclave precisely because of his naïveté as a curial outsider and a non-theologian diplomat who could be easily manipulated and sold on the false promise of a new Council. If even the inside player, Paul VI, could be subsequently betrayed into tears by the Modernist plan to re-spin Lumen Gentium after the Council, leading him to compose the nota explicativa, Pope John was a pathetically easy mark. He was a pious man, so giving him the benefit of the doubt, he was probably unaware that he was being completely used by the Modernists to bring on a Council intended to stall-out a revving Traditional Church.

Pope John gave the ironic opening speech at the Council. There he chided those Catholics who saw no need for a Council when everything was going so well. He said: “We feel we must disagree with those prophets of gloom, who are always forecasting disaster, as though the end of the world were at hand.” The Holy Ghost led Pope John to his election and, as a favor, must have blessed him with truthful, if gloomy, prophets to guide him regarding his Second Vatican Council. But just as Moses struck the rock twice, even God’s chosen leader can fail to always use good judgment. Pope John gave the order that marched his Church into a complete disaster — that, at least, was forecast by some.

Mr. Jones had gathered and presented in his book various American body counts resulting from the internal ecclesial war that tumbled out on to the streets as a result of Vatican II. If the goal of the enemy of the Church was to strategically diminish the Catholic Church as an effective organization in saving souls for eternity, the enemy must have been gloating since 1965 when the Council ended.

Jones’ presentation speaks for itself:

“Priests: After skyrocketing from about 27,000 in 1930 to 58,000 in 1965, the number of priests in the United States thereafter dropped to 45,000 in 2002. By 2020, there will be about 31,000 priests — and only 15,000 will be under the age of 70. Right now there are more priests age 80 to 84 than there are age 30 to 34.

“Ordinations: In 1965 there were 1,575 American ordinations to the priesthood, in 2002 there were 450, a decline of 350 percent. Taking into account ordinations, deaths and departures, in 1965 there was a net gain of 725 priests. In 1998, there was a net loss of 810.

“Priest-less parishes: About 3 percent of U.S. parishes, or 549, were without a resident priest in 1965. In 2002 there were 2,928 priest-less parishes, about 15 percent of U.S. parishes. By 2020, a quarter of all parishes, 4,656, will have no priest.

“Seminaries: Between 1965 and 2002, the number of seminarians dropped from 49,000 to 4,700 — a 90 percent decrease. Without any students, seminaries across the country have been sold or shuttered. There were 596 seminaries in 1965, and only 200 in 2002. There were over three times as many total seminarians in 1930 as in 2002. There were over seven times as many religious order seminarians in 1945 as in 2002. There were over three times as many diocesan seminarians in 1945 as in 2002. There were more seminaries in 1955 than in 2002. Between 1965 and 2002, the number of U.S. diocesan seminaries decreased by 33 percent. In that same thirty seven year period, the number of U.S. religious seminaries decreased by 75 percent.

“Sisters: 180,000 sisters were the backbone of the American Catholic education and health systems in 1965. In 2002, there were 75,000 sisters, with an average age of 68. By 2020, the number of sisters will drop to 40,000 — and of these, only 21,000 will be age 70 or under. In 1965, 104,000 sisters were teaching, while in 2002 there were only 8,200 teachers. That is a reduction of about 92 percent. There were over nine times as many sisters teaching in 1945 as in 2002.

“Brothers: The number of professed brothers decreased from about 12,000 in 1965 to 5,700 in 2002, with a further drop to 3,100 in 2020. Between 1965 and 2002, the number of brothers teaching decreased by 80 percent. There were three times as many brothers teaching in 1945 as in 2002.

“Religious Orders: The religious orders will soon be virtually nonexistent in the United States. For example, in 1965 there were 5,277 Jesuit priests and 3,559 seminarians; in 2000 there were 3,172 priests and 389 seminarians. There were 2,534 OFM Franciscan priests and 2,251 seminarians in 1965; in 2000 there were 1,492 priests and 60 seminarians. There were 2,434 Christian Brothers in 1965 and 912 seminarians; in 2000 there were 959 Brothers and 7 seminarians. There were 1,148 Redemptorist priests in 1965 and 1,128 seminarians; in 2000 there were 349 priests and 24 seminarians. Every major religious order in the United States mirrors these statistics of decline.

“High Schools: Between 1965 and 2002 the number of diocesan high schools fell from 1,566 to 786. At the same time the number of students dropped from almost 700,000 to 386,000. There were more private Catholic high schools in 1945 than in 2002. There were more than twice as many diocesan high schools in 1945 as in 2002.

“Parochial Grade Schools: There were 10,503 parochial grade schools in 1965 and 6,623 in 2002. The number of students plummeted from 4.5 million to 1.9 million. There were more parochial grade schools in 1930 than in 2002.

“Sacramental Life: In 1965 there were 1.3 million infant baptisms, in 2002 there were 1 million. There were more infant baptisms in 1955 than in 2002. (In the same period the number of Catholics in the United States rose from 45 million to 65 million.) In 1965 there were 126,000 adult baptisms — converts — in 2002 there were 80,000. In 1965 there were 352,000 Catholic marriages, in 2002 there were 256,000. There were more Catholic marriages in 1950 than in 2002. There were extremely few annulments in the U.S. in 1968. In 1968 there were 338 annulments, in 2002 there were 50,000. Jones quotes the highly respected canon lawyer Edward Peters from his November, 1996 Homiletic and Pastoral Review article Annulments in America: “According to the 1994 Catholic Almanac, 59,220,000 American Catholics make up 6.2% of the world’s 949,578,000 Catholic population. In 1991, the U.S. accounted for 63,900 (79%) of the world’s 80,700 annulments.”

“Mass attendance: A 1958 Gallup poll reported that 74 percent of Catholics went to Sunday Mass in 1958. A 1994 University of Notre Dame study found that the attendance rate was 26.6 percent. A more recent study by Fordham University professor James Lothian concluded that 65 percent of Catholics went to Sunday Mass in 1965, while the rate dropped to 25 percent in 2000.”

Jones points out that “Mass attendance of U.S. Catholics fell precipitously in the decade following the liturgical changes and has continued to decline ever since.” “This decline” he writes, “is not an isolated phenomenon, confined solely to the Church in America. In England and Wales, the time pattern of Mass attendance has been just as bad, perhaps even worse.”

Jones’ next point is critical: “Church attendance of Protestants, in contrast, has followed a much different path. For most of the period it was without any discernable trend, either up or down. In recent years it has actually risen. The notion that the Catholic fall off was simply one part of a larger societal trend, therefore, receives absolutely no support in these data.”

But these sad statistics may even miss the worse news. That news is that the actual spiritual state of the remaining “Catholics” may be even more weakened than these miserable, falling numbers reveal. That is because those reduced numbers of “Catholic” people are still baptizing their fewer babies, are still going to deficient Novus Ordo Masses, and are still following the graduates of homosexualized seminaries. They are led by priests and religious who probably do not, doctrinally, believe what the Catholic Church requires them to believe. In other words, even these positive numbers — drastically reduced though they are — may be extremely soft because these positive “Catholics” may be practical Protestants, or even profoundly non-Christian in their beliefs.

Only 10 percent of lay religion teachers, Jones writes in citing a 2000 Notre Dame poll, accept Catholic Church teaching on artificial birth control. Although even Vatican II taught that the Eucharist was the source and summit of the Catholic faith, a New York Times/CBS poll revealed that 70 percent of Catholics age 18-44 believe the Eucharist is merely a “symbolic reminder” of Jesus. How ironic that the post-Vatican II freefall from the faith even left behind what good Traditional teaching could be gleaned from the sometimes ambiguous Council documents.

Jones presents the following data compiled from the National Catholic Reporter of October 29, 1999:

PERCENTAGE OF CATHOLICS WHO BELIEVE A PERSON CAN BE A GOOD CATHOLIC WITHOUT PERFORMING THE FOLLOWING ACTIONS:

1999

Without going to Church every Sunday: 77

Without obeying Church teaching on birth control: 72

Without obeying Church teaching on divorce and remarriage: 65

Without obeying Church teaching on abortion: 53

Without believing that in the Mass the bread and wine actually become the Body and Blood of Jesus: 38

Without their marriage being approved by the Catholic Church: 68

Without donating their time or money to help the poor: 56

Without donating their time or money to help the parish: 60

Without believing that Jesus physically rose from the dead: 23

So how have the American Catholic bishops addressed this crisis? The sad truth is that they have addressed it in much the same way they have addressed the widespread infestation of active homosexuals within the clergy, or the general acceptance by the laity of the use of forbidden artificial birth control — they changed the subject.

At their twice-yearly meetings, rather than address the obvious loss of faith among their flocks and the eternal destination of souls, the American bishops prefer to play Congress as they debate immigration reform, economic policy, nuclear weapons and many other popular liberal political issues they lack both the competence and the authority to change.

Then, after doodling up silly political documents that no one will take seriously, if they are ever even read at all, they return to their comfortable gay-friendly, Tradition-intolerant, and Democratic National Committee-inspired chancery offices to “consolidate” parishes and close down more schools. Of course, they might focus on some diocesan-wide teaching initiatives. Unfortunately these initiatives all too often have nothing to do with the teaching of Traditional Catholic theology and a great deal to do with the sex education of children in their dioceses — the same children they have so terribly failed to protect from predominantly clerical homosexual abuse.

A relative few American bishops might worry about the vocation crisis and the best ones might even ordain a small number of seminarians each year. However, usually a relatively small subset of these ordained seminarians will be heterosexual and not suffering from what even the post-conciliar Catechism of the Catholic Church called, in paragraph 2357, “an inherently disordered condition.” Even fewer will hold a Traditional Catholic theology that Pius XII or even John XXIII would have approved of.

The future is bleak. All in all, there is very little to inspire a faithful Catholic heterosexual young man to enter into one of the remaining seminaries in America these days. Of course, the few men fitting that description would probably not make it past the liberal feminist, pro-homosexual woman who is the seminaries’ gate keeper.

Assuming by some fluke the good man gets through the admissions process, he is likely to be forced out at other points before ordination lest he might inspire more young men to pursue his faithful kind of priesthood.

We should not be surprised. The elimination or suppression of the faithful clergy has been Satan’s plan since the beginning. Since martyrdom tends to make more, not less, faithful priests, the preferred tactic by the Evil One is to make priests appear effeminate, ineffective, uninspiring and unnecessary. That approach has been working well for him lately.

Without priests the sacramental nature of the Church will disappear. Then the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church will become, save for a few faithful Traditional remnants, just another Protestant church without the sacraments.

Such a weakened, sickly entity occupying what little real estate it has not already sold off, torn down or abandoned will easily fit into the mosaic of a one world, Masonic religion that is anything but holy, anything but life-giving, and anything but sanctifying.

May God help the remnants of Christ’s true Church.

In preparation for Church Militant Boot Camp 2011, I want to begin with the inspirational story of Sgt. Giunta. The military’s ”Warrior Ethos” is: “I will never leave a fallen comrade.”  I’d like us to begin by asking ourselves whether we have the same resolve when considering the “eternal lives” of our loved ones.

Sgt. Salvatore Giunta is the first living person to receive the United States Armed Forces’ highest decoration for valor, the Medal of Honor, for actions that occurred since the Vietnam War.  This is what led to that decoration …

Shortly after nightfall on October 25, 2007, rifle team leader Sgt. Giunta and the rest of the seven troops of 1st Platoon had just finished a day-long overwatch in the valley below, and were returning to their combat outpost. With a bright moon lighting their way, they walked about 10 to 15 feet apart through the thin holly forest.

Within about 200-300 feet of leaving their position, 10 to 15 insurgents ambushed the main body of the squad from cover and concealment only about 30 feet away. The ambushing force was armed with AK-47 assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenade launchers and machine guns. Giunta described it later: “There were more bullets in the air than stars in the skies.”

Sergeant Joshua Brennan, leader of the alpha team and one of Giunta’s best friends, was walking point. When the Taliban opened fire, Brennan was struck by eight rounds. Another soldier, Gallardo, made an attempt to sprint forward, but RPGs exploding among the thin trees and 18 inches high bushes around him along with machine gun and small arms fire stopped him, and he began to retreat. Giunta saw Gallardo take a bullet to his head and fall. Assuming Gallardo had been shot, Giunta rose and ran through the intense wall of fire to his side. As he helped Gallardo find cover, the ceramic plate in the front of Giunta’s protective vest was struck by a bullet.

Giunta, seeing the injured attended to, began to advance over the exposed, open ground of the ridge in the dark, looking for his best friend, Brennan. When he could not locate him where he expected to find him, he ran after the retreating Taliban. The anti-coalition militia covered their rear with effective small arms fire but he ran after them. Giunta saw three individuals and then recognized that two of them were Afghans dragging Sgt. Brennan, one by the legs and one by his arms. Giunta pursued them, firing his M4 carbine as he ran, killing one (later identified as Mohammad Tali, considered a high-value target). The second Afghan dropped Brennan and fled.

Giunta said, “I ran through fire to see what was going on with Brennan and maybe we could hide behind the same rock and shoot together … He was still conscious. He was breathing. He was asking for morphine. I said, ‘You’ll get out and tell your hero stories,’ and he was like, ‘I will, I will.’”

After reaching Brennan, Giunta pulled him back towards the rest of the squad and cover, comforted him, and examined him for wounds in the dark. Brennan was grievously hurt. The 2nd and 3rd Platoons arrived to reinforce their squad and render aid. Giunta continued to assist the medic and adjust security while they waited for evacuation.

The ambush had lasted three minutes. Later the next day, Brennan died while in surgery. Gallardo told Giunta later on, “You don’t understand . . . but what you did was pretty crazy. We were outnumbered. You stopped the fight. You stopped them from taking a soldier.” Another soldier said of Giunta. “For all intents and purposes, with the amount of fire that was going on in the conflict at the time, we shouldn’t be alive.”

Sgt. Giunta learned two days later from Captain Kearney that the captain was going to recommend him for the Medal of Honor. He was uncomfortable about being singled out and labeled a hero. “If I’m a hero, every man that stands around me, every woman in the military, everyone who goes into the unknown is a hero,” he says. “So if you think that’s a hero—as long as you include everyone with me.” Giunta insists that his actions were those of any man in his unit. “In this job, I am only mediocre. I’m average.”

Jesus said to his disciples, “So you too, when you do all the things which are commanded you, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have done only that which we ought to have done’” (Luke 17:10).

Does your heart pound, like mine, when you read a story like Sgt. Giunta’s? It speaks to something inside all of us when we realize he ran through the hail of bullets to rescue his best friend. It is something hard-wired in us that asks us to risk everything for the life of a friend. Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13). 

Sgt. Giunta was courageous because he simply surrendered to the very essence of his being; his raison d’être (reason for existence). Fr. Thomas Merton wrote: “To say that I am made in the image of God is to say that love is the reason for my existence, for God is love.”  The word “courage” actually derives its meaning from the Latin root word, “cor”, which means “heart.” In other words, we are never more courageous than when we “have the courage of our convictions;” when we live from the heart.

This “living from the heart” is what “true freedom” really means. Sgt. Giunta was free to sacrifice his life for the “physical” life of his friend, Brennan. Now, we must ask ourselves: Are we truly free to make the sacrifices needed for the “eternal” life of our loved ones?

Our next instruction will include a SITREP – A Situation Report. In the military, this is a brief overall assessment of the situation to include circumstances or conditions which increase or detract from the capability of the assigned forces.

My plan to is to alert our boot camp participants to each new instruction, but please make it a habit to check the “Basic Training” section of this Knights of Divine Mercy website daily.

Opinion from across the pond and our friends from Catholic Herald.co.uk:

Is Barack Obama the most anti-Catholic American president in living memory?

I don’t mean, of course, that he has openly attacked the Church (though it was noted that, at his inauguration as president, contrary to normal practice there was among the clergy invited to attend not one single Catholic, though he made a point of inviting the controversial — because openly and actively homosexual — Episcopalian (i.e. Anglican) bishop, Gene Robinson).
 
What I mean, though, is that across the whole spectrum of contemporary moral issues, he is passionately committed to a series of views which run directly contrary to those of the Church. All this has caused at least one Catholic bishop (there are probably others) to call him anti-Catholic.

Continue reading …

This past weekend I made one of those decisions in my two parishes that was very difficult, only in the sense that my own silly pride seems forever inclined to seek the approval of others. It was one of those decisions that I could’ve waited on … to see if many other parishes were doing this first, but that stupid “integrity” thing wouldn’t let me wait for that.

This weekend we made the move to refrain from the use of Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion.  Thanks to this internet age in  which we live, the appropriate teaching on this was hard to escape. Up to now, I hid behind my “ignorance”, but once I received the truth, the culpability of my dissent became more grave. I could no longer cower behind my lack of knowledge. My conscience got the better of me as I realized my dissent would now be direct. 

In my larger parish, with the church about 90-95% full, it took only 8 minutes 45 seconds for me to give everyone Communion (also, like the Holy Father, I place a kneeler in front of me to give our people the option of kneeling or standing). There just isn’t a case for “unduly prolonged” Communion.

Oh, how I wanted to hang out in my ignorance.  Besides, look what happened to some of the priests who did this? (here) … I mean c’mon … national news? But, they inspired me to be join our Holy Father’s vanguard in reeling in some of the abuses which have crept into the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

Of course, I spent the weekend giving our people the teaching (with love) on this, and the response (so far) has been anything from, “Thank you, SO MUCH, father … we have been waiting for years for this” to “I’m leaving the parish.”

There are wonderful teachings out there in “Google Land,” but this one cuts to the chase pretty well (here).

I’ll humbly take your prayers that I remain strong and full of God’s love and patience as I move from the easy “wait and see” position to the bloody front lines on this issue.

This from Catholic News Agency:

Vatican City, Jan 12, 2011 / 02:57 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Benedict continued his recent theme of reflecting on women saints during his weekly audience, highlighting St. Catherine of Genoa and her insights on Purgatory.

The Pope said that St. Catherine – a 15th century Italian mystic – didn’t focus on the “torments” of purgatory but rather called it an “interior fire” that purifies and inflames our hearts with God’s love.

The Pope gave his remarks to 9,000 people in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican on Jan. 12.

He opened his talk by explaining that St. Catherine was born into a wealthy family and was married at the age of 16. Although she received a Christian education at home, she initially lived a worldly existence and experienced difficulty in her marriage, which caused her great bitterness, coupled with a profound sense of emptiness. 

The Pope said, however, that a unique spiritual experience in which she realized her own sin but also the goodness of God, made her decide to change her life. She then began what the Pope called a journey of purification and mystical communion with the Lord.

Continue reading …

Eye opening article from Fr. Z:

There is a great deal of confusion in the Church today. We have in large part forgotten who we are as Catholics and why we belong to the Church.

We don’t belong to the Catholic Church first and foremost for earthly motives. Bettering the world, improving the lot of others … these flow from our love for God and our desire to be with Him in heaven.

Try as I might, with the possible exception of the fact that Jesus founded her, I cannot think of a more important reason to be a member of Holy Catholic Church than the certainty that one day I will die. I will die and I will be judged. You will too.

Why are we Catholic? Why bother with Mass? With the Church’s teachings about moral issues? Why stand against the wind in the public square and twist in it, just to lose friends, status, and comfort?

Why? Our Saviour established the Catholic Church as our way to salvation. No matter how bad some fellow members of the Church may be, or how alluring the world surely is, or how tough we think we have had it, we are going to die one day, some of us pretty soon. That’s why we are Catholic. Trump that.

I hope by grace and elbow grease to do His will and to serve and worship Him fittingly in His Church. I try to love God. I want to please God. I believe He will help me, a sinner, in my weakness and forgive me when I fail. I strive to make changes when I am doing something that isn’t working. Why? Because I’m going to die, that’s why. I want to go to heaven.

If we love God, we will try to help other people get to heaven too.

We have some problems with that part right now, my friends, because Catholic identity is weary and weak where once it was strong and everything.

We are all men and women of our age. To one degree or other we are subject to prevailing trends and world-views. Also, we are wounded from sin and death is scary. Death yawns before us as that door we must go through to come before the great mystery which is both fearsome and alluring. We are, to our peril, quite willing to avert our eyes from this fearful prospect, death, through innumerable distractions which fog our inner compass. We easily forget the one transcendent source of our being, our origin and goal.

Continue reading …

Special Ops Mission reported by Sir David Steinnon:

We carried out a peaceful protest at the Institute for Discovery grand opening in Madison yesterday. Human embryonic stem cell research pioneer Jamie Thompson will work in this new facility which cost over $200 million, including about $50 million in state funding.  The paper says we had 12 protestors, but I counted about 19, including an 87-year old man from All Saints retirement home, and Fr. George Fox, over 80, who made his way with his walker all the way from the Lake Street ramp.  Deacon Jack Fernan blessed us before the protest. Steve Karlen and Virginia Zignego from Pro-Life Wisconsin were there, as well as Wil Goodman from the Servants of Our Lady of Guadalupe.