Root Causes Of Politics-Related Violence

Many of us are grappling with the recent spate of violence that seems to have spawned as a result of political differences.  We are trying to do so from the vantage point of truth as proclaimed by Jesus Christ through His Roman Catholic Church.  The root causes are obviously spiritual.  There has been wide-spread rebellion against God's immutable moral laws and against His claims to our worship of Him alone.

How often do we see our churches empty on Sundays?  Of those who do go to Mass, how many of them receive Holy Communion while living in mortal sin?  How many participate in the wanton slaughter of babies?  How many defy God's laws regarding marriage?  How many approve of the various perversions of sexuality and even participate in them?

The non-exhaustive list of sins enumerated above are increasing in number and are becoming ensconced in our social and political frameworks.  These are sins that, if not eradicated, will cause God's wrath to fall on us.

A facebook friend rightly states that we need to turn back to God and pray for each other.  No one gainsays that.  The problems of our society are rooted in spiritual malaise.  I do find problems with what she wrote.  I don't think she intended it, but her language implies that all individuals and/or groups in the U.S. are equally at fault for the current climate in this country.  I simply don't think the events of the past few months bear that out.

My blogging colleague at Les Femmes put up a challenge, to show examples of conservative violence.  She listed some liberal violence, but that list is not a complete one.  For instance, I see no mention of the theatrical farce in which an actor portraying Donald Trump was murdered.  At the Congressional Baseball Game (for which House Majority Whip Steven Scalise was practicing when he was shot), President Trump was booed as he walked to the field.  In response to the shooting, a New Jersey Democrat operative tweeted messages to "hunt Republicans".  If Republicans had engaged in this behavior, they would have been pilloried and their careers, if not their lives, would have been ruined.  However, when Democrats do it, they are celebrated by their compatriots.

The fact is that one political party, in its very platform, champions baby-slaughter and the perversion of sexuality and marriage whereas the other party doesn't.  The former is the Democrats and the latter is the GOP.  The Democrats have made in clear to would-be candidates that they must favor the mortal sins listed above if they wish to have a political career with the Dems.

To pretend that all individuals and groups share equal blame for this societal background is to fall into a simplistic blindness.  I can only speculate what the motive for such mental contortions may be but none of them would justify a refusal to embrace the facts as they present themselves.

Such pretensions have strong similarities to a thought-reform technique known as "blaming the victim".  It is used by leaders in cults to keep the partially brainwashed members in line, by causing them to think that their pain is at least self-induced and not attributable to the leaders.  In this case, it could be unconsciously used to justify not rebuking those who do advocate violence.

Let me tie all this up by agreeing with my first friend in that we must pray for widespread conversion.  The Blessed Mother, under various apparitions, said that plainly.  But in the meantime, we must name those who oppose Christianity and defeat them by all moral and legal means at our disposal.

Where Is The REAL Care For God's Creation???

My colleague at One Peter Five put up the pope's latest video regarding environmentalism.  As he stated in this commentary, this video explicitly extols the idolatry of "earth worship" before the worship of the One True God.  The stench of idolatry billows forth from the first few moments of the clip till the very end.

Notice that "believers and unbelievers" are told that they "agree that the earth is our common heritage".  Then the pope asks, "however, what is happening to the world we live in"?  In a word, it's called "sin" and it manifests itself in much more significant ways than in some trash on a beach.  Its spiritually deadly effects are manifest in sexual immorality, murders of babies, elderly and other innocents, the persecution of Christians in once-civilized countries.  Please note that it is the latter group of sins that can and will damn souls to hell; trash on a beach won't do that.

Let's look at that phrase "earth is our common heritage".  No, that's not why God created man.  Let's hearken back to the Baltimore Catechism.  Why did God make man?  God made man to know, love and serve Him in this world and to be happy with Him in the next.  God created man to be with Him in heaven, not to be focused on this earth (good as it may be in and of itself).  It is the God-given mission of the Church to help souls get to heaven - that's it!  Anything else is ancillary and must be explicitly aimed at the ultimate end of eternal salvation.  Watch the video carefully.  Are the words "heaven", "soul", "repentance", "salvation" mentioned therein at least once?

At the 0:48 mark, the pope states that "we need a change that unites us all".  That change is the conversion of every person to the Roman Catholic Church.  Unless that happens, any unity will at best be very temporary and at worst, a cheap and dangerous facade of true unity.  Read the book of Genesis. It's worth noting that in the very beginning, there was true earthly harmony in creation.  It was only after the sin of our first parents that creation fell out of harmony.  That harmony won't be restored until there is conversion to the One True Faith and attendant obedience to the Church in matters of faith and morals.  At the 0:57 mark, we see the pope hoping that we "be free from the slavery of consumerism".  Well, how about "freedom from sin"?  

The absence of the call for conversion to Catholism in this video constitutes true indifference to the pinnacle of God's creation, i.e., man for if there is no explicit and overt effort to bring about conversion to the One True Faith, there is no real concern for God's creation.

Why The Pro-Life Movement Is Not Making Significant Strides

I too have shared this concern, and a key cause for the sluggishness of progress can be laid at the embrace - by pro-life people - of contraception.  Witness the debacle of the Manhattan Declaration.  I refused to sign it for it danced all around the key issue of contraception.  Let's face it.  Before Roe v Wade there was Griswold v Connecticut and the 1930 Lambeth Conference.  We failed, and still fail, to heed the words of Humanae Vitae.  Only when we cease compromise on contraception will the Culture of Life have any chance to take hold and grow.

It is interesting to note how many Protestants came to the Roman Catholic faith because of their involvement in pro-life work.  No doubt they worked through the issues and recognized that the Roman Catholic Church was the only one with a relatively strong stance against contraceptives.  Pro-life leaders who converted to Catholicism include: Lila Rose, Randall Terry, Norma McCorvy, Bryan Kemper, the late Bernard Nathanson.  I'm sure there are others.

Aim For Conversion, Not Welcome

I link now to an excellent piece by Eric Sammons, a former fellow parishioner of mine who moved to Florida a while back.  He correctly observes that the focus of "evangelism" has gone adrift.  We have become too centered on making people feel welcomed as opposed to leading them to real conversion, a process that can (depending on individual circumstances) lead to them being challenged.

He makes another excellent point when he speaks of an overemphasis on trying to be understood as opposed to being precise in our language.  To quote, "the irony is that when one works for precision he gets understanding, but when he works solely for understanding he gets confusion."  As an example, he pointed to changes made by Pope Benedict XVI to the English translation to the Ordinary Liturgy.  Words employed therein are not used colloquially but they do convey more accurate meanings.

He gives a well-placed warning about attempts to "soften" the Church's language in misguided attempts to make the sinner feel "welcome".  Too often these attempts lead to obfuscations about the seriousness of sin, particularly of sexual sins.  These sins are objectively grave and will lead to loss of sanctifying grace; if one dies in that state they are damned.  Much better is it to warn people in forthright language so that they will be motivated to go to Confession to have grace restored.

Enough of my commentary!  Please read the link above.