Pope Leo XIV Breaks The Record For How Many Errors Can Be Crammed Into One Statement

Several weeks ago, Cardinal Blaise Cupich, Archbishop of Chicago, announced his intentions to bestow upon pro-abortion and pro-gay U.S. Senator Dick Durbin a "lifetime achievement award" for his support of - you guessed it! - illegal immigrants crashing through our southern borders.  This award was supposed to have been bestowed in November  

Immediately Bishop Paprocki and Archbishop Cordileone urged Cupich to cancel that award.  Other bishops soon followed in their condemnation of that award.  In the words of Complicit Clergy, Cupich told them to "pound sand".  Of course Cupich holds the slaughter of babies to be of little importance.  Recall that as Bishop of Spokane, Cupich forbade his priests from participating in the local 40 Days for Life efforts in his diocese.

Pope Leo was asked about this Cupich-Durbin scandal.  He responded by adding his own verbal manure to the pile.  Not only does he trot out the "seamless garmet" tripe, but also slanders faithful Catholics and good pro-life people in the process.  Please watch below the jump-break.

Why Progressives Hate The Idea Of Defense Against Evil

Thanks to Canon 212, I came across this very interesting article regarding the insane progressive push to hamstring our abilities to defend ourselves: from threats against our persons, our communities and our nation.  The call-out sentence sums things up quite well; "A fearless citizen with the will and means to defend himself is a threat to left-wing bureaucrats who want to boss him around".  That is why New York City is hell-bent on prosecuting for murder that shop-keeper who defended himself against someone who might have murdered him.  That is why they are all having snit-fits after the Supreme Court ruled that we do not have to "show cause" for exercising our right to bear arms.

Let me say a word now to friends who may be wishy-washy regarding the Second Amendment, thinking that it's the government's job to protect us.  The Supreme Court ruled in 1948 that such was not the case, although modern progressives lie through their teeth to pretend that it is.  Consider that the United States Constitution puts constraints on the government so that it does not unjustly deprive innocent people of the right to life, hearkening back to the Declaration of Independence that stated that God endowed us with that right.  With the passage of abortion laws, governments at all levels in this country arrogated from God the prerogative to deprive innocents of their lives.  In so doing, they assume tyrannical personas.  So many pro-life people realize, even if only instinctively, that they have no recourse but to rely on their Second Amendment rights to defend ourselves against governmental tyranny, if it should come to that.  To do so, we must have the means adequate to meet modern threats. 

Let's take a look at the death penalty (again).  I've written much on that over the years.  Here is a link that detail why the clamor to end the death penalty is its own sin.  Please read them.  I will post below tonight's episode of the Anchor Team.  In it, Michael and Alyssa Hichborn mention that the clamor to end the death penalty might be a manifestation of the progressive attempt to dispel belief in hell.  I wonder if the progressives' attempt to dispel the Just War theory might be a way to dispel belief in the incompatibility of good versus evil.

Cardinal Gregory To Join Forces With Dissident And Blasphemer Sr Helen Prejean To Whine About Capital Punishment

Yes, I said "blasphemer".  What else do you call someone who said that God the Father is a "monster, an ogre" for "demanding the death of a son (Jesus)"?  That and her other serious deviations from Church teaching are detailed here.  I would ask how Cardinal Gregory could dignify someone like that, but considering how he sang the praises of "Fortunate Families" during his first "theology on tap" session, I realize that he and Prejean are cut from the same cloth.

Anyway, this online gabfest is scheduled to take place on Tuesday, February 1st.  I'm sure it will be a real hoot.  It's a shame it isn't happening in the evening, for some insomniacs might find it helps them fall asleep.

When the time comes around for the "archdiocesan appeal", please consider that this is just one more reason not to give them a penny.

No Wonder Progressives Rail Against The Death Penalty!

 A few days ago I put up a post containing Taylor Marshall's commentary about the perversion that a priest committed atop the altar of his parish church, in effect desecrating it with his gross sacrilege.  Taylor mentions that the altar is symbolic of Christ Himself; that is why there are five crosses carved into each Catholic altar.  He noted that in more sane and reverent times, such deliberate desecration and sacrilege would have garnered the death penalty for the perpetrator.

He said this in passing, and I was prepared to let it remain a lesser point.  However, this is NOT the first time that a Catholic altar was desecrated - not so much with sexual perversion as with rank idolatry.  I remind you of this outrage, right after the pachamama idols were tossed in the Tiber.  This detailed what happened during the closing Mass of that climate-change gabfest during which the pachamamas desecrated the Vatican gardens and several Catholic churhes before being hurled into the Tiber.  As you watch the video of the Mass, take notice of how many times the camera zooms onto that plant.  Then the plant is placed on the altar in direct disobedience to the GIRM.  Take note particularly from 55:38 to 56:20.  Recall from the previous paragraph that any Catholic altar is representative of Christ Himself - and that defilements of said altars at one time were punished via the death penalty.

I'm going to link now to an article in Catholic World Report, where the author directs three questions to opponents of the death penalty.  These questions, in my opinion, reduce to shreds any attempt to vilify the death penalty.  But have you noticed that among death penalty opponents are all proponents of abortion, gay perversions along with heretics and those who blaspheme and commit vile sacriledge?  One might ask why, but I think the answer to that is quite obvious; they know that in a saner time, they themselves would be eligible for capital punishment.  Let us pray that these people come quickly to repentance.

Fruitti Tutti - Let The Penitential Slog Begin

The pope released his latest 45,000-word tome today.  It's called "Fratelli Tutti".  That link is to the English version on the Vatican website.  Others have already started to wade through it and their reports reveal it to be a hot mess of freemasonry, envirowhackosim, one-world government nonsense, etc.

In the third paragraph, the pope twists the narrative of St Francis of Assisi's meeting with the sultan.  He claims that the saint's "openness of heart..transcended differences of religion".  Nothing could be further from the truth.  He went to preach Jesus Christ and the One True Faith to the Moslems.  To understand that the Catholic Church is the One True Church is to acknowledge that other religions are false.  In paragraph 5, he sings the praises of his own lapse into religious indifferentism a few months ago.  Notice that the title of my post mentions the accolades that this blunder of the pope got from the masons.  There is much in Fruitti Tutti that is obviously masonic.

The next few paragraphs contain blather in vague language, but clear enough that one can detect the pope's detest of the free market system - a system that has actually lifted more people out of poverty than all the other sorts.

However, we get to paragraphs 37-41, where the pope adopts the progressive habit of conflating the topics of lawful immigration versus border-crashers.  This is patently dishonest.  To portray good people who are opposed to having to bear the financial brunt of border crashers as heartless xenophobes is nothing short of slanderous.

I am now just examining this thing and don't have time just now to read this entire verbose monstrosity.  I will return to this in future posts, but suggest you have a look for yourselves.  The link is in the first paragraph.  I will point out some highlights I noticed while I skimmed it.

• Paragraphs 119-120 are a thinly-disguised attack on the concept of private property.  He fails - or refuses to see that the right to private property is an adjunct to the right to life itself.
• Following those paragraphs we see an attack on the concept of national borders.
• Paragraphs 172-173 are an attempt to insinuate the concept of one-world government.
• Paragraph 263 repeats the erroneous call to end the death penalty.  Therefore it is heretical on its face, most likely rendering Fruitti Tutti to be heresy.
• Chapter 8's title starts with "Religion at the Service of Fraternty.."  Stop right there!  That is NOT the purpose of religion - at least not the One True Religion.  Its purpose is to worship God and facilitate eternal salvation.  Fraternity can only come about when people are united in faith in Jesus Christ as revealed through His Church.  Anything else is a cheap, sentimental facade of the same.  But maybe there is a reason why "fraternity" is being elevated to the level of de facto idol!

Paragraph 103 starts a section entitled "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity".  That phrase will send chills down the spine of anyone knowledgeable about modern history, namely, of the French revolution.  Its motto was Liberté, Unité, Égalité.  How many thousands went to the guillotine in the names of those so-called ideals?  Surely the pope and his ghost-writers cannot be so ignorant of that history, can they?  Or is the pope giving some tacit acknowledgment to freemasonry?  Even the masons themselves will acknowledge their role in the French Revolution. Recall how they applauded that agreement that the pope signed with the muslim leader a few months back.

As I meander through this verbose gobblygoop, I will have more to say.  Suffice it to say that we must continue to pray our Rosaries and beg Our Lady to join us as we intercede for the Church.

USCCB Calls Evil What God Ordained As A Tool For Civil Order

Last week I posted how many leftists are putting their souls into jeopardy by calling evil what God has ordained as goods.  The USCCB continues down that slippery path.

Today Attorney General William Barr has announced that the US Department of Justice will resume the federal death penalty.  Right on cue the USCCB is pitching its hissy fit.  A telling phrase in the Catholic News Agency piece is this: "Catechism of the Catholic Church paragraph 2267 on the death penalty was updated in 2018 with a statement from Pope Francis, calling the death penalty “inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person."

NEWS FLASH!  No one, not even a pope, can change Church teaching.  The pope is to safeguard the Deposit of Faith, not mutate it according to his whims and fancies.  Other popes throughout the centuries have upheld the legitimacy of the death penalty.  Pope John Paul II, in paragraph 56 of Evangelium Vitae, while making his personal disapproval known, also upheld the licity of the death penalty.

Any statement that claims that the death penalty is inherently evil is rank heresy.  It doesn't matter who utters it.

Woe To You That Call Evil Good, And Good Evil

That passage from Isaiah 5:20 is a strong admonition to left-leaning Catholics who have joined the progressive clarion call to fight all kinds of what they consider to be "social injustices" that may not be unjust at all.  The measure of what is good or evil, just or unjust is to be found in the Church's teaching traditions of the past two centuries, as opposed to popular fads that are spewing forth from dissident Catholic quarters.

Let's look at immigration, since these left-wing quarters, from the top down (that means you, USCCB) are having hissy fits about President Trump's ongoing efforts to expel foreign invaders.  The left-wing, clergy included, refuse to acknowledge that our concerns lie not with those who immigrate in conformity with our applicable laws, but with those who flout our laws and sneak inside the US.  They are, by definition, criminals.  They are breaking US law that does comply with Catholic moral theology.  In obfuscating that important distinction, they commit serious sins against the Eighth Commandment.  I've written a bit on this topic over the years; here's a collection of it.  So in this case, what's being called "evil" is the responsible regulating of immigration and what's being called "good" is the direct disobedience of immigration laws and being accessories to these crimes.

Let's move to another darling cause of the progressives - gun control.  The left is all gung-ho on this bugaboo, not addressing the fact that criminals, by definition, disobey laws.   The only ones impacted would be law-abiding citizens who desire to own firearms for the protection of themselves and their families.  Whenever a shooting happens, immediately the left starts kveling about the need for firearm restriction - never the apprehension of criminals.  Would that impinge too greatly on the Democratic voting base?  Look at England.  They've essentially outlawed guns, so what happens? Knife attacks arise - surprise!  The "geniuses" governing England are now into (wait for it!) knife-control!  Same thing in Red China!

Again, I've written a bit about that.  See here.  Please note that the top post explains why I believe that the USCCB's stance on gun control runs counter to Catholic moral theology.  Once upon a time I believed that this was an area in which good people could disagree.  I no longer hold onto that delusion.  The right to adequate self defense is a moral good that no one may call evil, on pain of sin.  A former pro-life leader, Rob Schenck, has glommed onto the erroneous push for arms banning, and in the process has allowed his thinking on basic pro-life issues to become corrupted.  I'll have more to say on that later.

Let's move on to the death penalty or capital punishment.  If gun control is an attack on the good of self-defense, the push to eliminate the death penalty is an attack on the good of civil government protecting its citizens from violent criminals.  Again, the USCCB and their dutiful puppets are lock-step with their Soros-esque sugar-daddies in their shielding of criminals from the death penalty.  Again, I've written much on that and won't rehash everything, but will elaborate on one major point.  In the past, all the popes have upheld the legitimacy and the good of capital punishment.  The most recent catechism from Pope John Paul II does the same.  However, last year Pope Francis annnounced his intention to rewrite the catechism to say that the death penalty is inadmissable.  I said it then, I'll say it now; THIS IS HERESY.   Of course the USCCB intends to happily comply in promulgating this heresy.  So now the good of capital punishment has been called evil, and this error has reached the proportions of full-blown heresy.

The USCCB, their obedient state-wide counterparts and the rest of their lapdogs are fully engaged in calling good "evil", and evil "good".  They have jettisoned all authentic moral bearing for the favors of money, power, and worldly prestige.  In so doing they have allowed their own thinking to become clouded, as have those who unthinkingly swallow the progressive bile simply because it comes from men wearing miters.

However, there have been pro-life leaders who, themselves succumbing to the siren calls of emotion-based leftwing sentiments, have allowed their pro-life beliefs to become weak and uncertain.  In other words, by assuming progressive positions on immigration, gun control, etc, they have assumed progressive positions in pro-life matters as well.  I have already mentioned Rob Schenck a few paragraphs back.  He now supports the legalized murder of children.  Another former pro-life leader, John Cavanaugh-O'Keefe, became so enamored of progressivism that he cast his vote for the rabidly pro-abortion Hillary Clinton in 2016.  Both of these men clearly called evil "good".

Ladies and gentlemen, liberalism is harmful to the soul and can impede eternal salvation.

Pope Francis Thumbs His Nose At Predecessors Regarding The Death Penalty

Pope Francis has for several years been advocating for an end to the death penalty, claiming that it is immoral.  Of course such opinions are in direct contradiction to the 2000+ years of Church Tradition.  I have long suspected that he has gone after that precisely because many good Catholics are ambivalent about usage of the death penalty today.  Perhaps he thinks that he can tinker with it to the point of heresy since he is not too likely to receive strenuous blow-back from such heretical attempts.  Therefore, if he weakens and compromises Church doctrine regarding that topic, he will have set a precedent for mutating other Church doctrine. 

Earlier today, the pope addressed a delegation from the International Commission Against The Death Penalty.  During that address, he dared to state that his predecessors "ignored the primacy of mercy over justice".  Of course he set up one of his infamous false dichotomies between "mercy" and "justice", as though justice is not an attribute of God's.

We must continue prayers for this pope.  While doing so, we must also study the Faith on our own, for many simply don't have access to faithful teachers of Church tradition.

Why Pope Francis' Tinkering With Capital Punishment Is Dangerous For Souls

It's Not Just About Capital Punishment

In a blog post yesterday, Msgr Pope appears to be minimizing the damage done by Pope Francis' attempt to change Church doctrine and to chide faithful Catholics (including Yours Truly) into silence.  Please remember that this blog is hosted on a server owned by the Archdiocese of Washington and that he has been quashed by them before.  However, if you read through the comments, you'll see that many of his readers comprehend the far-reaching implications of this latest action by Pope Francis.  Edward Feser of First Things elaborates on this further.

The Not-At-All Catholic Reporter opined last week that abortion should not be criminalized and that if we really want to end abortion, we'll need "support for birth control".  In other words, to eliminate one evil, substitute another.  In this screed against laws to prevent abortion, I wonder what the authors would think if we were to substitute "racism" for "abortion"?  But I digress.

Of course they waxed lyrical over Francis' death penalty gaffe and what they acknowledge as an attempt to change Church teaching.  They really have no concern for obeying Church teaching, as evidenced by their dismissive attitudes towards contraception.  But perhaps they believe that the pope will try to bastardize the Church's teachings on contraception.  I regret they may be correct in that prediction.

The Pope Has Uttered Heresy. Is The Seat Of Peter Vacant?

From the Catholic News Service (official news outlet of the USCCB), we read that the "pope revises catechism to say that death penalty is inadmissible".  With that the pope has squarely plopped himself into full-blown heresy.

It cannot be denied.  No pope can change Church teaching.  The Church's teachings are immutable for they emanate from God, who is Himself immutable.  Throughout the centuries the Church has always upheld the legitimacy and usefulness of capital punishment.  No one pope can turn around and contradict all his predecessors, Church Fathers, Doctors of the Church etc without pronouncing heresy.

Many blogging colleagues have written excellent analyses of this latest antic of Pope Francis'.  Rather than "reinvent the wheel", I'll now link to them for your reference and reading.

• One Peter Five - with a discussion on why the pope's statement is formal heresy
• Ann Barnhardt - with a smattering of teaching throughout the years
• AKA Catholic - detailing how Pope John Paul II's errors facilitated today's heresy
• Remnant - exposing the arrogance behind Francis' stunt.
• My own prior writings - including why abolishment of the death penalty is itself sinful

This heresy needs to be put in some context.  I don't think I'm the only one to find it very interesting that the pope plopped this stinker just as we are all focused on the sodomite rapists among the episcopate.  In a saner time, they would be eligible for the death penalty, but I digress.

We also notice that this is happening as there is much discussion on:

• admission of divorced and "remarried", that is, adulterers, to Holy Communion
• admission of non-Catholics to Holy Communion
• allowing dissident women to pretend that they are "deaconesses"
• attempts to normalize sodomy in the Church (e.g., amoralis lamentia)

The things stated above would all be heretical.  Might the push to demonize capital punishment be a "trial balloon", so to speak, to get faithful Catholics to swallow the false notion that immutable Church teaching can be "tweaked" here and there?  Some faithful Catholics might buy the canard that capital punishment might well be declared wrong in opposition to centuries of Tradition.  But right there, the camel has stuck his nose under the tent, for if Tradition can be disregarded with respect to capital punishment, why not with respect to contraception or homosexuality or divorce/remarriage or even abortion?

Formal heresy has been uttered.  Is Peter's seat vacant?

Pope Francis Continues To Clash With Sacred Tradition

The pace of the current pope's attempts to deconstruct the traditions as espoused by his predecessors is increasing to a pace that is difficult to match.  The pope recently referred to the death penalty as a mortal sin.  From America magazine we read how he equated the death penalty with slavery, saying erroneously that they were both considered acceptable.  Note - before some say that this article simply reflects America's progressive leanings, a careful read of the byline will reveal that this article is a reprint of a piece from Catholic News Service, the news outlet of the USCCB.  Why USCCB is clasping hands with this heretic rag will have to be a topic for a future post.  Suffice it to say that I've no reason to doubt the factual accuracy of the pope's quoted statements.

Nowhere in Scripture or Tradition is the practice of slavery condoned, let alone promoted as a social good.  Individual Christians may have been embroiled in it, but that does not mean the Church hierarchy gave official approval of slavery.  Sacred Tradition, on the other hand, has always held that the death penalty is a legitimate tool to be used by civil governments to facilitate the protection of the citizens under their care.  Even St John Paul II acknowledged the same when he made his own abhorrence of the death penalty known.

In the America article, the pope pretends to be able to take what Sacred Tradition always acknowledged to be a tool for the maintenance of the public good and to make it into a mortal sin.  He's trying to morph a moral good into an intrinsically moral evil.  I remember a quote whereby the Lord chastises those who call "evil" "good" and vice versa.  Let's move on.

Cardinal Coccopalmerio is President of the Pontifical Council For Legislative Texts.  He's responsible for interpreting much of canon law.  He recently said that Anglican orders may be, in some cases, valid.  That is a direct contradiction of Apostolicae Curie, issued by Pope Leo XIII.  In that papal bull, Pope Leo XIII declared (in section 36) "that ordinations carried out according to the Anglican rite have been, and are, absolutely null and utterly void".  Pope Leo could not have been any clearer.

Here's the last one for this post.  From Gloria TV we learn of the possibility that Humanae Vitae might be on the papal chopping block.  Well, it's all about being "pastoral", isn't it?  Will contraception be considered "pastoral" and "accompanying"?  That would be a violation not only of Humanae Vitae, but of Evangelium Vitae, Casti Connubi, and most likely others - all teachings of Jesus Christ Himself.

Any sitting pope can only guard the Deposit of Faith.  He cannot alter it.  I'm not a canon lawyer so I ask that if Pope Francis were to solemnly proclaim these errors to be truth, would said declaration show his papacy to be illegitimate?

Dissident Sr Helen Prejean In The Catholic Standard

Sister Helen Prejean, author of "Dead Man Walking" (a tome against capital punishment) was featured in the February 23rd issue of the Catholic Standard.  This particular piece is only found in the paper edition, not online.

Apparently her book was made into an opera and she gave a presentation on it at the Washington National Cathedral.  This presentation that included a panel of leaders of various religions was sponsored by "Catholic Mobilization Network To End The Death Penalty".  Isn't that a mouthful?  While we can be grateful that this gabfest didn't occur in a Catholic facility, we can wonder why the Standard staff saw fit to devote an entire page to it.

Sister claims to be opposed to abortion, but other problems abound as evidenced here.  At the 2008 Democratic Interfaith Gathering, she said “And in the Christian tradition, there are those who say God allowed or even willed his own son, Jesus, to be sacrificed and killed on the cross in payment for our sins!  And when we kill criminals we have chaplains in death houses!  And when we kill criminals for their crimes God accepts their death in payment for their sins so they can go to heaven!  What kind of god do we believe in?!  What kind of father would demand the death of a son?  Is this a god?  Or is it an ogre, a monster, created by our own violent impulses?  We project so this is God who wants vengeance, like we want vengeance.  Truly there are contradictory images of God in the Bible.  On which one will we model our lives?"  She blasphemed against God the Father and the Crucifixion.

She "officiated" at the wedding of Susan Sarandon's daughter.  Only clergy do that.  Does this point to dissidence regarding women and the priesthood?  It would appear so.  She also seems to condone the normalization of homosexual perversions in society.  I state all of this to demonstrate that Sister Helen Prejean has not one shred of credibility whatsoever to lecture Catholics on anything, let alone moral issues.

Several years ago, Judie Brown of American Life League touched upon Sister's seeming indifference to the murders of tiny children.  There does seem to be a lack of proportion in Sister's mind when it comes to the importance of both abortion and capital punishment in comparison to each other.  I've blogged about the matter in the past and now link to those posts.  In the first post in that anthology, I highlighted some statistics showing that for every convicted criminal executed there were 42,000 babies legally murdered.  In the third post I pointed out that the effort to eliminate all capital punishment might well be an act of disobedience to God Himself for it was He who charged civil governments with that responsibility.

Some might be understandably befuddled as to why so many of those who seek to abolish capital punishment actually applaud the murders of tiny infants.  I was among that number until the answer dawned upon me almost instantaneously.  The repugnance that pro-aborts feel towards capital punishment actually stems from both guilt and fear.  In a saner time, these same pro-aborts, precisely because of their support, if not cooperation with and even commission of the crime of baby-murder, would themselves be eligible for the death penalty.  As it is, they are in grave danger of damnation unless they repent.

What I still fail to understand is how any reliable Catholic news outlet could devote an entire page of newsprint to someone who deviates from Catholc morality.  This article is just the latest example of why the Catholic Standard connot be considered a reliable Catholic news source.  Regrettably we'll see new reasons in the not-too-distant future.

National Catholic Register And Capital Punishment

The National Catholic Register, a normally sensible publication, has linked arms with some not-so-sensible publications (America and National Catholic Reporter) and partook of their kool-aid.  They have glommed onto the push to end capital punishment.  I've blogged before about the consequences of embracing positions that are not in accordance with Catholic tradition.  In one of those posts I put forth my reasons for believing that the push to end capital punishment is a slap in the face to God Himself.

The Register article features one quote of Bishop Thomas Wenski of Miami: "The use of the death penalty devalues human life and diminishes respect for human dignity. We bishops continue to say: We cannot teach killing is wrong by killing."

We'll unpack the last sentence, for therein lies some confusion.  The Fifth Commandment prohibits murder, not killing.  Owing to poor translations from the Hebrew, we do have some confusion.  "Murder" and "killing" are not the same.  Murder is defined as "the deliberate taking of innocent human life". While all murder involves killing, the converse does not hold.   There is, for example, the killing that must sometimes happen in the course of self-defense; no sane person will call that "murder".  Therefore I'd say to Bishop Wenski that it is not "killing" that is wrong per se, but "murder".  Moreover, the "killing" done by capital punishment is done after due process of justice whereby the condemned is adjudicated not innocent, but guilty of capital crimes.

Further down into the article, Cardinal O'Malley called capital punishment "institutionalized practice of violence".  Here again we have a problem with the defining of terms.  Violence is defined by Catholic moral theology as "the unjust use of force".  In this case, "force" and "violence" are being confused by the Cardinal.  After the due process of justice as mentioned above, the use of deadly force in capital punishment is not "unjust".

A blogging colleague, Veneremurcernui at A Blog for Dallas Are Catholics has his post on this matter.  In it he had video of a homily on the topic.  I post that below.  We pray for the salvation of those condemned.  We pray also for the 3500 babies murdered each day via abortion, for whereas the condemned criminals can avail themselves of the sacraments, the innocent babies haven't that advantage.

Maryland Catholic Conference Errs (Again) With Death Penalty

In today's Catholic Standard, page 3 in print and online here, the Maryland Catholic Conference is beating its chest over its faux-victoire regarding the abolition of the death penalty in Maryland.  I stated my case clearly how the abolition of the death penalty actually runs counter to Church teaching and Evangelium Vitae in particular.  I needn't rehash all that here.

I also stated in that post that there is an effort underway to petition this abolition to the next Maryland referendum.  I signed that petition, no doubt to the consternation of Mary Ellen Russell.  In the Standard article, read that little insert of hers that's designed to cajole faithful Catholics into eschewing the referendum petition.  She talks of the repeal of the death penalty as "an integral part of our pro-life efforts to uphold the sanctity of all human life."  No, it is not!  I'd strongly suggest that she study Evangelium Vitae and notice that there is a world of difference between the inherent evil of taking the most innocent human life - that is, murder and the exercise of legitimate authority a charge laid upon it by God Himself.

She then takes a direct pot-shot at the referendum effort itself, saying "the referendum will only divide the prolife community and drain scarce time and resources from other more important prolife goals".  Well, guess what, Ms Russell?  On both counts here, it's the Maryland Catholic Conference (under your less-than-stellar leadership) that stands guilty as charged!

Maryland Catholic Conference - Careening Towards Irrelevance

Some might think my title is overly harsh.  Actually I think it's rather mild as it may be lurching towards dissidence.  For those who have been keeping an eye on the state Catholic Conferences, along with the USCCB, this is no surprise.

On January 19th the Holy Father released a statement that made plain that Catholic agencies should refuse partnerships that would indirectly support activities opposed to Church teaching.  He is confirming what so many faithful Catholics have been saying all along regarding the questionable alliances concocted by the "social justice" arms of the Church bureaucracy and of the insipid toadying to prominent pro-aborts done by Church prelates.

On page 3 of the Jan/Feb edition of Our Parish Times appeared an article about the Maryland Catholic Conference and its choice of priorities.  What are the top two in the headline?  "Death penalty repeal" and "Catholic school support".  The third most popular was "gun violence".  The word "abortion" was not to be found once in this article and while "stem cell research" was mentioned, there was no clear explanation that embryonic stem cell research is a form of child murder.

I knew the "death penalty repeal" appeal could make the MCC susceptible to the temptation to involve itself in all manners of squalid associations.  So far I'm proven correct.

I discovered that tonight Maryland Citizens Against State Executions held their 2013 Rally and Lobby Day.  See the link for further details.  You'll see that they act contrary to the Holy Father's Jan 19th directive against lending indirect support of sinful activities.  In this meeting, the MCC has allied itself with:

• Equality Maryland
• ACLU
• NAACP (and various chapters)
• Progressive Maryland
• Amnesty International

All of these organizations promote baby-murder and perversions of sexuality and family life.  This evening the Maryland Catholic Conference, once again, sold its soul.

Below the jump break I'll post two relevant videos so...