Tag Archive for: God

Reclaiming the Biblical Rainbow

Whether you’re browsing through a clothing aisle of Target or taking a walk through your neighborhood — especially during the month of June — it’s likely you’ll run into a symbol plastered on t-shirts or waving on flags: the rainbow. What do you immediately associate with the bold colors of red, orange, yellow, green, indigo, and violet? Most would likely say LGBTQ Pride. It is easily identifiable due to the infiltration of Pride merchandise in stores, schools, and neighborhoods.

Within the last 50 years, LGBTQ+ culture has adopted the symbol to represent sexual identity, and it has become a staple in the Pride movement. The materialized association we make between the God-ordained rainbow with a so-called “pride” for sexual identity has become normalized as the symbol is often paired with the image of a same-sex couple or phrases like “love is love.”

How did this association come about? Who decided on the counterfeit rainbow as the staple image to represent the LGBTQ community?

The answer lies in the late 1970s when San Francisco artist and drag performer Gilbert Baker was asked to create a symbol representing the gay community. The Department of Mental Health claims that, “Baker collaborated with his friend Lynn Segerblom” to “design” the rainbow flag. The only difference from their design and God’s was two more colors: hot pink and turquoise. Although these two colors have since been removed — and other renditions of the flag continue to occur regularly — the design made its debut at the Gay Freedom Day Parade in San Francisco in 1978.

According to History.com, “The most commonly used image for the burgeoning gay rights movement was the pink triangle,” a symbol that was pinned to people who identified as homosexual during World War II by Nazis. “Using a symbol with such a dark and painful past was never an option for Baker,” so instead he chose the rainbow as it was “meant to represent togetherness.” Each color maintained a significance: hot pink for sex, red for life, orange for healing, yellow for sunlight, green for nature, turquoise for magic and art, indigo for serenity, and violet for spirit.

Since his creation of the rainbow Pride flag, Gilbert has been recognized by political leaders and praised for the strides he made in the movement. In 2016, former President Barack Obama presented Baker with a hand-dyed rainbow flag. Baker spent the remainder of his life “push[ing] boundaries and gender norms,” until his death in 2017.

With June being the designated “Pride Month,” the LGBTQ community and supporters push the sale of as much rainbow gear as possible. In preparation for the month, conservative leaders have spoken up, calling people to take the rainbow symbol back.

“The rainbow is and always will be a sign of the covenant God made with his people,” wrote conservative author and influencer David Harris. “The woke mob may try to twist its meaning, but we won’t let their foolishness prevail. It’s time to reclaim the rainbow for His purpose!!”

Similarly, pro-life advocate and author Abby Johnson posted some “reminders” on her social media page, encouraging her followers to remember the rainbow’s true meaning.

“I will not stop enjoying rainbows just because man has decided to attempt to usurp it,” she wrote. “God defines marriage because He created it. We don’t get to argue with Him about it or throw a tantrum. He made marriage, He gets to set the terms. It’s between a man and a woman.”

Why are these conservative leaders calling for people to take the rainbow back? What is so significant about different wavelengths of light striking water droplets, resulting in seven colors forming an arch? Let’s go back to some of the earliest days of creation to answer this question.

In Genesis 6, we are told that as the human population grew, so did their wickedness. Humans were so corrupt, that “every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time” (Genesis 6:5). It says the Lord regretted creating humans. Within just five chapters of creation’s origin story, God went from nodding in approval and calling his people good to feeling remorseful over his creation. When Adam and Eve took a bite of the forbidden fruit, sin entered the world and with it came separation from God: an unbearable consequence that all people deserve.

From the beginning of time, fleshly desires took over the human race and people turned their back on God. So, God sent a great flood in order to “put an end to all people” (Genesis 6:13), except for one family, headed by a man named Noah, who “found favor in the eyes of the Lord” (Genesis 6:8). The fate of the human race fell to the obedience of this one man.

As the story that we learned in Sunday school goes, God ordered Noah to build an ark and spared him and his family from the flood. In Genesis 9:11, He establishes a promise, saying, “Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.” To seal this promise, God explained the significance of the symbol of his covenant.

“I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth” (Genesis 9:13-16).

From these few verses, we learn that in God’s mercy, he decided to give humanity a second chance to live in harmony with him, and he set a reminder in the sky.

If the original meaning of the rainbow was meant to represent God’s promise to never wipe out his people with a flood again, how come it is now associated with sexual orientation and gender fluidity? Doesn’t it seem ironic that a movement rooted in sexual anarchy — which stands in opposition to the Word of God — uses a biblical symbol to represent its anti-biblical ideology?

Baker designed a version of the rainbow as the LGBTQ symbol “because he saw flags as the most powerful symbol of pride.” As Christians, the rainbow represents something completely different and much more sacred: a symbol of hope. Hope of an everlasting life with a Just and Merciful Creator, despite our temporary and wretched state. As author of “God’s Covenant with the Earth” Peter Harris pointed out, “God’s covenant with Noah was a commitment to maintain the inherent relationship between Creator and creation.” Nothing can separate us from his love. There is room for forgiveness, and our nation must fight for a story of redemption.

As Family Research Council’s Senior Fellow for Biblical Worldview and Strategic Engagement Joseph Backholm put it, “It seems significant that the LGBT rainbow is a counterfeit of a real rainbow because everything about the sexual revolution is a counterfeit of good things God created. Satan has always been in the habit of taking good things and modifying them slightly so they have similarities to good things but are not good things.”

As we walk through the month of June, let us heed the instruction Peter wrote to God’s elect and remember to stand firm in our faith and convictions. “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9).

AUTHOR

Abigail Olsson

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.


The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Good Friday and The War for Our Souls

The name of this holiday is always jarring to me.

Good Friday, the day we observe the crucifixion of Jesus, first leaps upon our senses as everything bad. An illegal trial gone wrong; a miscarriage of justice; extreme acts of violence; an innocent man stricken, smitten, and afflicted. Not only that, but there’s also the loss of hope, the triumph and cruelty of the mob, and a people sent into hiding. It’s bad, it’s evil, and it’s everything nefarious rolled into one.

We only know Good Friday as good through the lens of Sunday’s resurrection. That’s why pausing too long on Good Friday is dangerous for our souls. God in his mercy moved the focal point of the fullness of time from Friday to Sunday. If we lag too long on Friday, we miss the movement of resurrection. If it all ends on Friday, our souls are stunted, and Friday is not good. The only hope for our souls lies on Sunday with Friday behind it.

Followers of Jesus remind ourselves of this movement year after year because by it our souls have been saved. And therefore we celebrate Christ’s death — a celebration of mourning that, with resurrection, turns into jubilation. The celebration is continuous because our memories are not. At minimum, we need this yearly reminder of what God has done for us in Christ. We needed it in the years following Jesus’s death, resurrection, and ascension, and we need it in 2023.

Especially in 2023.

There is, of course, nothing new under the sun. Anything novel today has been seen before in one fashion or another. But still, 2023 has its unique challenges for Christians. There is a certain type of war being waged for our souls, and here in America, to say it’s under a microscope would be an understatement. It’s under the floodlights, and it’s by no means subtle.

Back in the 2020 presidential campaign, then-candidate Joe Biden said in his nomination speech at the Democratic National Convention, “This campaign isn’t just about winning votes. It’s about winning the heart, and yes, the soul of America.” Even the Trump campaign picked up on this language, producing a video mocking the rhetoric while asking people to give to their own campaign in order to “save America’s soul.” More recently, President Biden upped the ante on our nation’s soul during his infamous September 2022 speech at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. Backdropped by ominous red lighting, a strangely imposing looking Biden railed:

“I ran for President because I believed we were in a battle for the soul of this nation. I still believe that to be true. I believe the soul is the breath, the life, and the essence of who we are. The soul is what makes us ‘us.’

The soul of America is defined by the sacred proposition that all are created equal in the image of God. That all are entitled to be treated with decency, dignity, and respect. That all deserve justice and a shot at lives of prosperity and consequence. And that democracy — democracy must be defended, for democracy makes all these things possible. Folks, and it’s up to us.”

The president made mention of “soul” eight times in that speech. And he’s continued to use the word gratuitously. In recent days declaring the Transgender Day of Visibility, he proclaimed, “Transgender Americans shape our Nation’s soul.” Make no mistake, while he may have grown up in suburban Pennsylvania, Joe Biden is most definitely a soul man.

Whether or not it’s Biden himself or one of his aides who is behind this overtly theological doctrine of the soul, it’s certainly a teaching at odds with the Bible’s concept of the soul. For Biden, “democracy makes all these things possible.” Contrast that with Paul: “For by him [Christ] all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities — all things were created through him and for him” (Colossians 1:16, ESV).

For Biden, transgender Americans shape our nation’s soul. The Bible’s view of shaping comes from a radically different frame: “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers” (Romans 8:29, ESV).

We who follow Christ in America must live in Biden’s world, but we must not live as students of his doctrine. We live as expatriates, as citizens of a kingdom that is far away, but that is also already present but not yet fully realized.

On Good Friday, Jesus was crowned by his captors with a garland of thorns. But what was meant as mockery served as a coronation. King Jesus ascended not a throne there in Jerusalem, but a cross. Jesus’s substitutionary death for his people revealed that the battle for souls was far more than a battle for what makes us “us.” As the late John R.W. Stott, in his classic work “The Cross of Christ” observed, “What God in Christ has done through the cross is to rescue us, disclose himself and overcome evil.”

The good news of Good Friday is that this battle — this war — is ultimately one-sided. Victory for souls is won on the cross of Christ and only on the cross of Christ. And we as combatants in this battle must be captured by the cross to have any hope of Sunday’s resurrection. The alternative leaves us stranded on Friday, and that’s anything but good.

AUTHOR

Jared Bridges

Jared Bridges is editor-in-chief of The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.


The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

What Will Persecuted Christians Face in 2023?

The Bible radically challenges the status quo. It speaks truth to power.


During a recent conversation with Margaret, a woman who suffered life-changing injuries after Islamists assaulted a Catholic church in Nigeria last Pentecost Sunday, I couldn’t help but reflect deeply on the words of Christ:

“Whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that overcomes the world, our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” (1 John 5)

Indeed, who is it that can forgive their enemies and overcome hatred, violence and abuse of the kind suffered by Margaret but he or she who knows Christ?

In my work for the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) UK, I am frequently asked about how I deal with all the negative stories and the “doom and gloom”. But as St John’s letter reminds us, a strong faith in Christ’s ultimate victory upends this question: rather, how can I deal with all the pessimism and negativity without learning from the example of the modern-day martyrs?

Speaking to Margaret taught me two key lessons: that we in the West need the example of the persecuted Church, and they need us. The more that the opponents of the Church become emboldened in persecuting her, and the less we speak truth to power, the more severe will the persecution be this year. Our silence is a green light to violence.

2022 made this fact clearer than ever. More Christians suffer for their faith in Christ than any other religious group suffers for their faith, according to the Pew Research Center. This is borne out by fresh data from Aid to the Church in Need’s latest report Persecuted and Forgotten? A Report on Christians oppressed for their Faith 2020-22.

The oppression or persecution of Christians increased in 75 percent of the 24 countries ACN surveyed. In Africa, the situation for Christians worsened in all countries reviewed amid a sharp increase in genocidal violence from militant non-state actors, including the jihadist groups Islamic State West Africa Province and Boko Haram. Nigeria is in particular trouble. In the Middle East, continuing migration deepened the crisis threatening the survival of three of the world’s oldest Christian communities located in Iraq, Syria and Palestine.

State authoritarianism has been the critical factor causing worsening oppression against Christians in China, North Korea, Vietnam and Burma (Myanmar). Religious nationalism has caused increasing persecution against Christians in Afghanistan, India and Pakistan, among other countries. Fashionable holiday destinations like the Maldives fare poorly when it comes to the treatment of Christians. Football-famous Qatar has also been on our radar.

A key trend we are witnessing in the West which aids and abets the persecution of Christians is civil authorities’ frequent denial of the extent of the problem. This can stem from ignorance of and outright unwillingness to alleviate the suffering of Christians, but also takes the form of dubious arguments that reject explanations of the crisis rooted in anti-Christian hatred, instead preferring economic justifications or cries of “climate change”. But climate change alone cannot explain Christian persecution, as the UK parliamentarian Sir Edward Leigh MP explained in a recent article.

2023 will see these trends escalate, ACN’s research suggests. Our work proactively identifies the trends Christians face early on, rather than being purely reactive. This call to justice is crucial to waking up governments, decision-makers and the Church to the plight of the most vulnerable. We defend the persecuted Church and stand in solidarity with her but, perhaps even more importantly, we provide support and pastoral care so that she can persevere in her mission to preach the Gospel to all nations, whatever the cost.

Speaking to ACN last year after her release from captivity in Mali, west Africa, Sister Gloria Cecilia Narváez said: “My God, it is hard to be chained and to receive blows, but I live this moment as you present it to me … And, in spite of everything, I would not want any of [my captors] to be harmed.”

The Franciscan sister was held by Islamist militants for over four years, during which time she was repeatedly physically and psychologically tortured. Sister Gloria made clear that her Christian faith was the source of the animus against her, describing to us how her captors became enraged when she prayed. On one occasion, when a jihadist leader found her praying, he struck her saying: “Let’s see if that God gets you out of here. Sister Gloria continued: “He spoke to me using very strong, ugly words…My soul shuddered at what this person was saying, while the other guards laughed out loud at the insults.”

As Christ says to the persecuted Church and to us: “In the world you have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)

When I read these words, the smiling portrait of a humble and persevering Nigerian woman comes to mind. This year, like so many other Christians, Margaret will continue to suffer and to triumph. This year truth and falsehood will be asserted variably in the courts of power.

Yet, however worldly justice deals with the cause of persecuted Christians, long may their suffering smiles ring out the joy of victory.

AUTHOR

John Pontifex

John Pontifex is Head of Press and Information at Aid to the Church in Need (UK), an international Catholic charity which supports persecuted and other suffering Christians. More by John Pontifex

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EDITORS NOTE: This MercatorNet column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

VIDEO: The Vortex — On a Mission From God

And we had better get to it.


TRANSCRIPT

We’re here to attend an annual conference by the Napa Institute and take the temperature — and if need be, help raise the temperature — on the topic of corruption in the hierarchy. The crowd that attends the Napa Institute is well-off, many of them very well-off. They are politically conservative certainly and socially polite.

It’s a Catholic country club crowd who love their Faith, as far as they have been schooled in it, depending on who they listen to. Of course, given the dominant dynamic at work, like all other human beings, they will listen to those who most appeal to their own psychologies and predispositions.

To be certain, the Blase Cupich contingent of prelates would not be welcome here, nor would they like to attend. The prelates who attend here instead have the reputation of being orthodox, mainly politically conservative, and are much easier to stomach because they too are socially polite and enjoy quiet interactions and so forth.

But there is where things can — and in many ways have — gone off the rails. Conservative personalities are very cautious, they don’t like rocking the boat, they are very slow to act and, when they do act, it is usually in a minimal way. This isn’t out of any malice or anything; it’s just their dispositions (like many of the wealthy attendees). Birds of a feather, as they say.

The problem in the Church these days, however — the complete crisis we are seeing unfold before our eyes in lightning speed — requires a different psychological approach. It requires a disposition to admit that past strategies and approaches have been too polite, too optimistic and have failed.

That’s not something that wealthy, conservative people like to face. There is a certain level of positive self-image that accompanies material wealth and admitting an unpleasant reality doesn’t fit too well with that mindset. But that mindset and its concurrent failing strategy need to be jettisoned pronto if there is any hope of saving the Church in the United States.

First, the wealthy backers and patrons of many orthodox bishops must come to realize that most of these men have, in their own way, actually contributed to the crisis in the Church. They have come very late to the game — they had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the light of complete revelation that many of their “brother” bishops are actually wicked and have been actively engaged in taking over the Church and repurposing it into a globalist tool.

Many of the good bishops have, perhaps unwittingly, even gone along with this by not confronting loudly and clearly the false narratives of systemic racism, manmade climate change and illegal immigration. These are all communist talking points that wicked bishops have baptized (so to speak) and made out to sound somehow, in an intellectually tortured kind of way, Catholic.

They are not even remotely Catholic. However, even more alarming is that what passes as justice for society, which it is not, is promoted by not just bishops who are political Marxists, but who are actually morally degenerate and doctrinally deficient.

The wealthy crowd here at Napa just doesn’t want to hear that: It’s too much “boat-rocking.” Same with their allied orthodox bishops. It’s too scandalous for their ears (not to mention too threatening to their careers) to go down this path. So evil men in the hierarchy get a pass, capitalizing on the psychological dispositions of a very conservative crowd who simply do not want to face the music on all this theological and moral depravity among a certain subset of the episcopate.

This is precisely where the “orthodox” bishops, trapped in their own psychological and career dynamic, have failed miserably. Not only have they failed to openly, loudly and publicly challenge this evil, they have also failed to alert their wealthy benefactors, many of whom are here in Napa.

Money, by the millions, tens of millions, needs to be poured into efforts to root out these wicked prelates, expose them and take control of the narrative. When the news broke earlier this week that the most senior cleric in the United States who is not a bishop, USCCB general secretary Msgr. Jeffrey Burrill, is actually leading a double life of active homosexuality — in and out of gay bathhouses, homosexual hookups and all of it through a phone app he was on every day — people were shocked, and it blew up all over social media.

But why would people be shocked? Church Militant has been saying this same thing for over 10 years, earning the scorn of the gay clergy and the contempt of the polite-society crowd of Catholics, where such “distractions” aren’t discussed among the elites.

“Sure, people sin, but we need to move on” is the response from the well-heeled crowd. That is beyond belief that such an attitude would dominate the response of people who might be actually able to do something about it. Bad clergy need to be exposed. That costs money. Private eyes are not cheap.

Data mining is also not cheap. Round-the-clock surveillance, flying people around who are in the know and need to deliver documents personally — every bit of this is costly.

Yes, it’s distasteful, but nowhere near as much as looking into the wet eyes of an abuse victim molested by these gay men in miters and collars, nowhere near as much as listening to the families of young men who killed themselves. Talk to the good priests who have been ground up under the wheels of this lavender mafia choking the life out of the Church right now.

Sit down with the would-be seminarians who have been driven out because the gay formation team (from whom the bishops look the other way) has its say in who gets in and who doesn’t. What about the countless families — mothers and grandmothers, dads — who mourn constantly that their children have left the Faith because they were never instructed properly after all those years of tuition at Catholic schools.

The Church is in what is perhaps Her worst crisis ever, a massive disbelief by both clergy and laity. And no amount of beautiful scenery and pleasant company, cigars and good food can erase that reality. So Church Militant has come to Napa to see if the events of the past three years as well as those which keep happening have red-pilled any of the crowd which is generally resistant to being red-pilled.

We’re here, as we said, to take the temperature as well as raise it if need be. Wealth provides comfort, and comfort can prevent seeing plainly what is right in front of your eyes. The Church is not loved by hobnobbing with bishops. The Faith is not restored by a somber chat over a fine martini.

The Church is aided by rolling up your sleeves and getting in the fight, as nasty and dirty as it may be. The sodomite stranglehold on the Church must be broken. The corruption and quietism among the hierarchy must be banished. These are the driving forces why Church Militant is organizing the “Bishops: Enough Is Enough” prayer rally and protest in November in Baltimore.

Already, over a thousand people have signed up for the event in less than a week, with more coming in every day. Just click on the provided link to reserve your spot. We are all on a mission from God to stand up for the Church in this Her most desperate hour. God knew from all eternity this evil would arise at this point, and He created us for this moment.

The scandals in the Church don’t end — and are actually increasing — because the men and women who have the power and influence to end them don’t want to. They will not look evil in the eye and confront it, and, therefore, evil runs wild snatching souls and allowing the culture to be destroyed.

One day, perhaps soon, even a lot of money will not preserve otherwise faithful Catholics from the onslaught of Marxism in the Church. Time is quickly running out. The facade of “things are not that bad” is dissolving rapidly.

EDITORS NOTE: This Church Militant video is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

We Have Forgotten God

It’s a cliché to say that this is the most important election in our lifetime. But I really feel strongly that this is the most important election in our lifetime.

There is so much at stake. Above all is the question of whether we will continue as one nation under God. Will we embrace America as founded or will we completely jettison all pretense of our national motto—In God we Trust?

I think our problems can be traced back to this simple truth: We have forgotten God. That’s why all these bad things are happening to us.

Founding father Patrick Henry warned, “It is when a people forget God, that tyrants forge their chains.”

The late Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was the great chronicler of what President Ronald Reagan rightfully called, “The Evil Empire,” i.e., the failed Soviet Union. The Nobel-prize winning author spent about a decade of his life in the Soviet Gulags (for a veiled criticism of Stalin in a private letter).

Solzhenitsyn said, “While I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of older people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.”

As simple as those peasants’ statements were, the great novelist noted that no one diagnosed the problem better than they did. He continued: “Since then I have spent well-nigh fifty years working on the history of our Revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous Revolution that swallowed up some sixty million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.”

Why is America seemingly sinking into the abyss? We have forgotten God. And the results of this rejection we can see on the streets of America:

  • We have strangers shooting strangers because they disagree politically.
  • We have daily riots and looting, with criminals immediately let back on the streets, thanks in many cases to George Soros money.
  • We have mobs chanting, “F*** your Jesus.”
  • We have liberal governors shutting down churches as “non-essential” during the COVID-19 crisis, while encouraging rioting, with or without social distancing or masks.

In America today people have forgotten God, and we’re living out the descent of man, as seen in Romans chapter 1. When people reject God and His righteousness and refuse to thank Him, He turns them over to their own devices.

Dennis Prager of PragerU once told me in a TV interview: “The Supreme Court changed America with the 1962 decision that prayer in school was unconstitutional. That was the decision that began the end of America as we knew it.”

The prayer ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court was this: “Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessing upon us, our parents, our teachers and our country.”

Prager continued: “It’s as universal a prayer and non-denominational as you could have. And as I often point out, within one generation, kids went from blessing their teachers to cursing their teachers.” [Emphasis added]

Many of our presidents throughout history have called on God and have called on Americans to set aside a time (usually a day) of prayer. For example, FDR, in the wake of the Pearl Harbor attack, called for January 2, 1942 to be, “a Day of Prayer, of asking forgiveness for our shortcomings of the past, of consecration to the tasks of the present, of asking God’s help in days to come.”

Today, how much more are we in need of “asking forgiveness for our shortcomings”?

President Harry Truman even systematized the National Day of Prayer as an annual event. Truman declared in his proclamation (June 17, 1952): “From the earliest days of our history our people have been accustomed to turn to Almighty God for help and guidance.”

When there is no God to whom we must give an account, then the state can become god. That is certainly true in the minds of many a totalitarian dictator.

If we continue down this godless path, we will not remain free. How we vote will not change our national make-up. But it will make a difference in pushing away tyranny or rushing toward it.

Reagan once noted, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”

©Jerry Newcombe, D.Min. All rights reserved.

THE RETURN: National and Global Day of Prayer and Repentance on September 26, 2020

The Return is a movement, an appointed time, and a specific day set apart for one purpose – the return to God by coming before His presence in humility, in sincerity in prayer, and repentance.

The movement begins now and will continue through the entire year of 2020 leading up to 10 Days of Prayer, Fasting, and Repentance – Starting with the Biblical Feast of Trumpets and ending with the Day of Atonement (September 18-September 28). The central day of The Return will be Saturday, September 26, 2020 on the National Mall and throughout the nation and world.

Come to the Live Event in Washington or take part by Live Simulcast wherever you are – In your Home, Church, Town, or City!

The Return will reach beyond the borders of America and gather all nations for a Global Day of Prayer and Repentance. For those who wish to experience this solemn assembly in person, The Return will hold a live event on the National Mall in Washington D.C. on Saturday, September 26. There is no charge to attend, but tickets will be required. Tickets will be on a first come first serve basis.


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©The Return. All rights reserved.

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“The Devil and Karl Marx”: A Review

Robert Orlando: In his new book, Paul Kengor plunges a stake into the heart of the devil and Karl Marx. But as we know, such vampires are not so easily killed.


Paul Kengor is a teacher and writer who has always had an eye for the spiritual dimension in history, politics, and economics. (He was the perfect partner for me in our book and documentary film, The Divine Plan: John Paul II, Ronald Reagan, and the Dramatic End of the Cold War.)

Prof. Kengor’s new book, The Devil and Karl Marx: Communism’s Long March of Death, Deception, and Infiltration, is a hammer and sickle dismantling of the diabolical character of Karl Marx (1818-1883). As Michael Knowles writes in the book’s foreword, “Kengor knows, like few others writing today, that terms such as collectivism and individualism only take the debate so far. . . .Ultimately the fight comes down to spiritual warfare: good versus evil.”

Indeed, Kengor’s book is all about the clash of the modern, devilish forces of socialism and communism – the key Marxist systems – against the eternally divine force of faith.

The book opens with a portrait of Marx’s formative early years, an approach similar to Paul Johnson’s in Intellectuals: From Marx and Tolstoy to Sartre and Chomsky (1988). Johnson was accused of being moralistic for judging Marx’s ideas through the lens of his character. Of Marx’s writings, Johnson says their “actual content can be related to four aspects of his character: his taste for violence, his appetite for power, his inability to handle money and, above all, his tendency to exploit those around him.”

Professor Kengor goes even further, depicting Marx as possibly under the Devil’s spell. The young Marx wrote some very dark poems filled with the sort of anti-religious sentiments that would inspire his Communist Manifesto. “It is in part, a tragic portrait of a man,” Kengor writes, “but still more broadly so, an ideology, a chilling retrospective on an unclean spirit that should have never been let out of its pit.”

Here’s an example from Marx’s poem, “The Pale Maiden” (1837):

Thus Heaven I’ve forfeited,
I know it full well.
My soul, once true to God,
Is chosen for Hell.

Kengor (like Johnson) makes the case that Marx, a self-absorbed intellectual, never lived out his own convictions when it came either to money or the redistribution thereof, evidenced by his dismissive attitude towards providing for those under his care. For instance, Marx exhausted the resources and goodwill of his parents, and instead of becoming remorseful or apologetic, he defiantly disowned them once they were no longer of value to him.

When it came to money, everything Marx touched turned to straw. His combustible life was filled with tragedy, debts, and, with the exception of the death of his wife Jenny, an apparent lack of regret in the face of his greatest losses. Family suicides, sexual exploits (including the possible abuse of a family maid) enflamed his life with bloody anger and fueled his revolutionary spirit. In this troubled background are the origins of his communist worldview – a complete rebellion against anything traditional or sacred. Thus the title of Kengor’s book.

Although I agree with the inescapable connection Kengor makes between Marx’s life and his philosophy, I might not place so much emphasis on the man’s early life. Many historical figures were wayward in youth, even some of our saints. Paul the Apostle aided and abetted murder as he tried to violently eradicate the Early Church. We don’t define Augustine by the reckless years prior to his conversion. In fact, these men are saints precisely because they changed.

In Marx’s case, of course, he never changed. He drank the nectar of the devil (my words), and it poisoned him – just as communism poisoned so much of the world.

The middle sections of the book track the rise and fall of the Left’s great messiah and his closest apostle, Friedrich Engels. It continues with a history of Marx’s disciples, from Vladimir Lenin in Russia to Saul Alinsky in the United States.

Kengor also explains how these and other henchmen have assaulted the Catholic faith. Although vigorously opposed by Catholic leadership, Marxism would nonetheless gain a foothold in parts of the Church. Kengor highlights Pope John Paul II’s success in his confrontation with Marxism and communism. Having lived much of his life in a communist regime, St. John Paul knew well Marxist ideas, which enabled him to deal effectively with the liberation theologians in South America.

I think of Kengor as plunging a stake into the heart of the devil and Karl Marx. But as we know, vampires are not so easily killed. Marxism in the 20th century used class warfare, and that was mostly a failure. In the 21st century, Marxists are employing identity politics, lately with some success. But the aim is the same: to sow cultural destruction. If this doesn’t make you angry, you’re not breathing.

Bizarrely romantic revolutions – from Mao’s China to Seattle’s Capitol Hill Organized Protest zone – Marx’s ill-conceived utopias aren’t just destructive, they’re murderous. The death toll of communism worldwide exceeds 100-million! Kengor calls it “nothing short of diabolical – truly a satanic scourge, a killing machine.”

Without question, America has had its share of betrayals and unrealized ideals, but what other country has made such progress with the rule of law, individual freedom, and shared prosperity?

Marx believed religion was a drug (the opium of the people) used by the wealthy to maintain disproportionate power. In retrospect, of course, communism peddles its own drug: an idealized global world, in which inequality disappears in the obliteration of all human distinctions. Kengor sees the seeds of our current flirtation with Marxism in the promotion of sexual freedom, “that plagues us to this today.”

Scripture teaches that, after the Resurrection, Lucifer was left only with the power to accuse, with rhetoric his only weapon. This is why Satan and Marxists prey on the most vulnerable: those least sure of their own identity. Satan comes as “an angel of light” (2 Corinthians 11:1), but he and his disciples, Marxist groups such as Antifa and the founders of the Black Lives Matter organization, bring only darkness.

Paul Kengor shows us the light.

COLUMN BY

Robert Orlando

Robert Orlando is a filmmaker, author, and entrepreneur. He’s the founder Nexus Media, and his latest films include The Divine Plan, and Citizen Trump. He also has a new book, The Tragedy of Patton: A Soldier’s Date with Destiny, forthcoming in November. His work has been published in HuffPost, Patheos, Newsmax, and Daily Caller. As a scholar, he specializes in biography, religion, and military history.

EDITORS NOTE: This The Catholic Thing column is republished with permission. © 2020 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to: info@frinstitute.org. The Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own.

DNC Committee Omits ‘Under God’ From The Pledge Of Allegiance

Godless. monsters.

DNC Committee Omits ‘Under God’ From The Pledge Of Allegiance

By Kylee Zempel, The Federalist, August 19, 2020:

A Democratic National Convention moderator omitted sacred words from the Pledge of Allegiance during a panel discussion Tuesday: “under God.”

During the Muslim Delegates Assembly, the video of the livestreamed event shows A.J. Durani led the pledge but left out an important part, saying, “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” Durani was elected to be a super delegate for the 2016-2020 term of the Democratic National Committee.

The pledge has included the phrase “one nation under God” since Congress passed a law, signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, in 1954 to add it to the recitation. So, regardless of this 2020 panel’s objectives, the official pledge includes the religious phrase. “Under God” was added largely in response to the Cold War era’s threats of communism and the ideas of Marxist-Leninist countries. Ironically, many leaders of the Democratic Party are once again advocating Marxism through revisionist history and the Black Lives Matter organization.

Anyone who has watched the trajectory of the Democratic Party, now with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris at the helm, shouldn’t be surprised at the omission. After all, this presidential nominee pledged to go after nuns for refusing to violate their consciences in providing abortifacients. Catholic churches denied Biden Holy Communion for his aggressively pro-abortion policy positions, and he signaled support for using taxpayer dollars to fund abortions, directly contradicting the most basic of biblical principles.

Biden’s running mate is arguably leagues worse with regard to religious bigotry. Harris’s anti-Catholic posture led her to fight the confirmation of Judge Brian Buescher over his membership in the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal service order. As attorney general of California, Harris also launched an intrusive investigation into citizen journalist David Daleiden for taking undercover videos that exposed abortion giant Planned Parenthood for trafficking aborted baby body parts. Congress continues to do nothing about this appalling atrocity.

All this is also to say nothing of the Democratic Party’s increasing disdain for traditional religious teaching on marriage, the family, and church, to name a few.

As the convention progresses, we shouldn’t be surprised when Democratic Party and committee leaders take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance. They’re usually trying to take Him out of everything else.


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The Politics of Heaven and Hell

Robert Royal: Heaven is in Heaven and the New Jerusalem cannot be brought to Earth by our efforts; only God will bring perfect justice at the Second Coming.


Shortly after I arrived in Washington years ago, I reviewed a book with the same title as this column. A friend warned about reviewing books by that particular author – our late lamented colleague James V. Schall, S.J. – because if you start, he said, you won’t have time for anything else. And that was before the supernova of titles that Schall the Great turned out in his seventies, eighties, and even nineties.

Ignatius Press is republishing The Politics of Heaven and Hell this fall with an introduction by another incisive and prolific writer, Robert Reilly. A good thing, too, because in our current chaos, when it seems almost impossible to get sure footing about anything, this relatively neglected volume not only uncovers sure foundations. It explains the ways by which we’ve mixed up eternal and temporal things – and put the times out of joint.

Schall’s central insight is that our central traditions of both faith and reason agree that politics is an important, but circumscribed realm. If we were the highest beings, politics would be the highest science, said Aristotle. That wise pagan – Dante calls him “the master of those who know” – knew that we are not the highest beings. There’s God, for starters, and His Creation, to which we owe deference. Ignore them, and the inevitable result is chaos, suffering, servitude, tyranny, and death.

The ancient Hebrews learned this well before Aristotle. Schall notes how little attention political theorists pay to the Old Testament, the history of a small and obscure nation – Israel – that survived, improbably, down to our own time, with incalculable influence on the history of the whole world. It did so not because of any special policies or virtues: Jewish history is a record of graces given and refused, of return and consequent flourishing, of many rounds of ignoring God, decline, and renewal through Him.

The overall lesson: nations are great not because they accumulate power or wealth. Power and wealth come and go. And aren’t all they seem anyway. Nations are made great, however insignificant they may be in earthly terms, because God makes them so and they conform themselves to God.

Christianity, of course, limited politics in a special way, beginning with Jesus’ famous distinction between the things that are Caesar’s – the arrangements necessary to human flourishing (even, sadly, taxes) – and the things that are God’s. Those few words had immense, cascading effects in the Christian tradition.

And not only in thinkers like Augustine, Aquinas, Suárez, Bellarmine, etc. Countries historically touched by Christianity still mostly protect beliefs about ultimate things from control by politics – indeed, believe that right can and should challenge might. That separation is absent from Muslim societies, ideological regimes like China, or traditional societies where the ruler is regarded as a kind of mortal god.

But it’s not only on high intellectual or social planes that these truths prove themselves. As we’ve seen only too clearly in modern times, when politics becomes the “highest science” men become not philosopher kings, but beasts. The totalizing political systems of Communism, Nazism, and Fascism were killing machines on an unprecedented scale.

And recent decades have given birth to what the Polish philosopher Ryszard Legutko calls the “demon in democracy,” a new totalitarian temptation wherein everything is defined by political ideology. We worry over “polarization,” but there’s a deep geological fault in our politics, far more radical than that. The absence of religion in the public square, with its moderating effects, is a large factor in this development, since once the true God departs the false god of the state arrives.

Even good public impulses then become poisonous – and unlimited. For example, we’ve just seen what can happen when a proper effort to right racism, a historic wrong, is made the measure of everything. Everything becomes “racist” that is not explicitly “anti-racist” – according to someone’s definition, which may differ from someone else’s. Not surprisingly, demands for absolute political justice then turn into “canceling” and anathematizing people who show the slightest deviation from an ideological line – i.e., injustice.

Historic racial inequities need to be fixed, but does injustice only involve race – with occasional bows to gender and class? Andrew Sullivan, a brilliant writer, recently resigned from New York magazine because it couldn’t bear his criticism of “cancel culture,” despite his being gay and liberal on some issues, conservative on others (and somehow also aspiring to be Catholic).

He pointed out that it’s places like the New York Times that really don’t understand a just “diversity.” The Times seems poised to cave in to employee demands that staff reflect the racial makeup of New York City: 24 percent black and more than half “people of color.” And there must be “sensitivity training” – i.e., ideological indoctrination – for everyone.

Sullivan notes that there are other underrepresented groups at the Times. Only 37 percent of New Yorkers, for example, are college graduates – who are overrepresented in the newsroom – as are Asians and Jews. Should some of them resign?  If you wanted fairer proportions of New Yorkers, 10 percent of staff would have to be Republicans, 6 percent Hasidic Jews, and 33 percent Catholic.

It may be a long wait for that because ideologues only care about certain “facts” and rarely have a sense of irony – or humor.

Which takes us back to the politics of Heaven and Hell. Heaven is in Heaven and the New Jerusalem cannot be brought to Earth by our efforts; only God will bring perfect justice at the Second Coming. The road to human hells, however, always lies wide open.

The larger perspective that religion affords us – including elements like human imperfection, sin, forgiveness, tolerance, the limits of earthly politics – does not mean that we need to be any less passionate in pursuing justice and fairness. But it does mean we have to be vigilant and measured about our own motives and the results of our actions. We have on good authority: “Therefore take heed that the light which is in you is not darkness.” (Lk. 11:3)

Robert Royal

Dr. Robert Royal is editor-in-chief of The Catholic Thing, and president of the Faith & Reason Institute in Washington, D.C. His most recent book is A Deeper Vision: The Catholic Intellectual Tradition in the Twentieth Century, published by Ignatius Press. The God That Did Not Fail: How Religion Built and Sustains the West, is now available in paperback from Encounter Books.

EDITORS NOTE: This The Catholic Thing column is republished with permission. © 2020 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to: info@frinstitute.org. The Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own.

The Decline of Christianity Since the Reformation

David Carlin: The decline of Christianity is found not just in those who claim no Christian faith, but also in those who claim to be liberal Christians.


Modern history (by which I mean the history of the western world since about the year 1500) tells many stories.  I suspect that these many stories are subplots in one big story, and for years I’ve been trying to guess what this one big story may be.  My guess (but it’s only a guess) is that the one big story is the story of how the western world has been trying to get rid of Christianity.

The story begins with the Protestant Reformation.  None of the reformers intended to do away with Christianity.  Just the opposite.  Regardless of anybody’s intentions, however, a divided Christianity would be easier to destroy than a united Christianity.

This divided Christianity led in the 16th and 17th centuries to the rise of skepticism, especially in France.  But skepticism, while it continues even to the present day to erode Christianity, is too purely negative a thing to replace the old faith.  And a replacement is needed.  You can’t just get rid of Christianity and leave the world with nothing to believe in.

Skepticism was succeeded by a more positive thing in the 18th century, Deism, which professed to hold on to the good elements of Christianity (afterlife, morality, etc.) while getting rid of its bad elements.  But Deism was too “thin” a thing to replace Christianity.  Besides, it stopped well short of the ultimate aim of anti-Christianity, namely the complete eradication of the old religion.

Deism helped bring about the French Revolution, which showed for the first time that a powerful state could be used as a tremendous anti-Christianity machine.

In the second half of the 19th century, there was a great intellectual movement on behalf of agnosticism.  But agnosticism was simply another name for the old skepticism, still too negative a thing to get the anti-Christianity job done.

In the 20th century, two gigantic anti-Christianity movements took the stage, and each of them came to control an enormously powerful state: Nazism and Communism.  The former intended to get rid of Christianity while thinly disguising its intention; it deceived many Christians who wanted to be deceived.  The latter didn’t stoop to disguise; it was quite frank about its intention.  Both of them did great damage to Christianity, and when they failed (Nazism in 1945, Russian Communism in 1991) they left behind them a Christianity that had been greatly weakened.

In the postwar period (1945-present) the western liberal democracies (U.S.A., U.K., France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, the Scandinavian countries, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Ireland, Spain [after Franco], Portugal [after Salazar]) have been subject to a non-statist kind of anti-Christianity.  These countries all experienced, some of them sooner, some of them later, the growth of an anti-Christianity public sentiment.

These countries all experienced the gradual asphyxiation of Christianity by the gradual growth of anti-Christian feelings.  For decades the state played little or no part in this smothering process – though this has changed recently.

This liberal-democratic, anti-Christianity got a tremendous boost beginning in the late 1950s and early 1960s with the coming of the sexual revolution.  This “revolution” was about sex – but it was about much more than sex.  Sexual restraint and even downright chastity had been an essential element of Christianity from its beginning in the first century AD.  Get rid of Christian sex morality, and you’re well on your way to getting rid of Christianity altogether.

Once the average person decides that Christianity has been wrong about fornication, adultery, homosexuality, abortion, etc. for almost 2,000 years, it will be relatively easy for that person to believe that Christianity has also been wrong about many other things – including all the articles of the Nicene Creed.

Many would-be Christians – I have in mind “liberal” Catholics and Protestants – believe it is possible to have a “new and improved” Christianity that embraces and endorses the values of the sexual revolution.  They are mistaken – as certain a priori considerations should have persuaded them decades ago, and as experience has abundantly demonstrated over the last fifty years.

Throughout the western world (the world that used to be called Christendom), including the United States, Christianity is in steep decline today.  Evidence of this decline is found not just in those who claim no Christian faith (the “Nones”).  It is also found in those who claim to be liberal Christians – which means that they have dropped most of Christianity’s orthodox “baggage.”  And it is also found in those who, while claiming to be orthodox, really don’t take their orthodoxy seriously.

Two questions:

  1. Does one have to be an atheist to be anti-Christianity? Strictly speaking, no. For instance, the Deists of the 18th century were anti-Christianity without being atheists.  But if you want to get rid of Christianity, it helps to be an atheist.  A lot, because atheism is the most thoroughgoing kind of anti-Christianity.  If you want to get rid of the old religion, why not go all the way?  Why not destroy the very foundation of Christianity?
  2. Does one have to be a supporter of abortion to be counted among the haters of Christianity? Yes. For the right to abortion – and not just the legal right but the moral right as well – is essential to the sexual revolution.  If we don’t have abortion as a back-up when mistakes are made or accidents happen, how can we have a moral regime of sexual freedom?

Practically speaking, we can’t.  Think about it.  If abortion were to be banned throughout America, the next thing you know we’d have people recommending chastity.  And once people recommend chastity, guess what? – they’ll start recommending Christianity.

Well, we can’t have that, can we?  And therefore we must make sure that abortion is legal and is considered to be morally unobjectionable.  Indeed we must make it a praiseworthy thing – the kind of thing which, like public education and police and fire protection, everybody who needs it should have free of charge.

For what it’s worth, that’s my reading of the last 500 years.

David Carlin

David Carlin is a retired professor of sociology and philosophy at the Community College of Rhode Island, and the author of The Decline and Fall of the Catholic Church in America.

RELATED VIDEO: Spike in anti-Catholic attacks.

EDITORS NOTE: This The Catholic Thing column is republished with permission. © 2020 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to: info@frinstitute.org. The Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own.

Catholic and “catholic”

Fr. Paul D. Scalia: The Church’s children should resemble her. We ought to strive to be catholic (universal) in our zeal, our mercy, and our embrace of Truth.


In today’s Gospel, our Lord likens the Kingdom of heaven to “a net thrown into the sea, which collects fish of every kind.” (Mt 13:44-52) This net, which gathers not just one kind of fish but fish of every kind, serves as a good description of what we confess every Sunday: the Church is catholic.

Now, most people probably think of “Catholic” as the brand name of a particular Christian denomination. Yes, we speak colloquially of the Catholic Church as distinct from the Lutheran, Episcopal, Methodist churches, etc. But that’s a fairly recent designation, only since the Reformation. Before the Church was “Catholic” she was already “catholic.” It’s a truth we find expressed in the Church’s earliest years. The word “catholic” means universal, embracing and bringing all things together into a unity (from the Greek kata holos, “according to the whole).

Now, the distinction and relation of “Catholic” and “catholic” is important: one cannot be Catholic without also being catholic. To be a member of the Church means to share in her catholicity. So, what does that entail?

First, the Church is catholic – universal – in the most obvious sense: for all people. “Here comes everybody” is James Joyce’s famous description of the Church. She welcomes all comers, embraces and incorporates all people – “from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and tongues, all peoples, of every race, nation, and country throughout the world.” (Rev 7:9) She leaves no group or kind of people beyond her mission and solicitude.

Now, catholic in this sense does not mean everyone thrown together willy-nilly, as you might toss all your clothes into the closet. Rather, it means all people brought together as one, as a unified whole. In the United States, we are now witnessing what happens to a society when its various peoples have lost their principle of unity. The Church, however – and, in the end, only the Church – is truly universal because she both embraces all people and makes them one body in Christ.

The implications of this universality should be clear. It means, first, that we welcome all people into the Church. Anyone who repents and believes is welcome regardless of any accidental qualities.  Further, this catholicity requires that we actively seek to bring the Gospel to all peoples, and all peoples to the Church.

Second, the Church is catholic in the sense that she forgives all sins. This is a consequence of her being the continuing presence of Christ Himself in the world.  Our Lord has authorized her to act and speak in His Name. He entrusted to her ministers His own power to forgive, a power limited only by a person’s desire to be forgiven.

Through the ministry of the Church, any of our sins, from the most trivial to the most severe, can be forgiven when we repent and ask forgiveness. Which also means that we should desire the extension of that forgiveness and reconciliation. Indeed, we should participate in the Church’s ministry of reconciliation. As such, our own personal forgiveness should extend as far as the Church’s, from the most trivial slight to the gravest sin against us. As regards forgiveness we can never say, “thus far and no further.”

Throughout her history, from Tertullian to Calvin, the Church has seen plenty of rigorists who would like to shorten the reach of her mercy. Like the slaves in the parable of the wheat and tares (Mt 13:24-43), they want a Church of saints not sinners. In the current “cancel culture,” the mobs of secular rigorists give us a sense of just how brutal a society is that desires pure justice (or what passes for it) and no mercy.

Finally, the Church is catholic in the sense that she possesses all truth. Everything necessary for salvation is found within her doctrine. All religions possess some aspects of the truth. Only Christ’s Church possesses the fullness of the truth.

Notice that the net in the parable brings in “all kinds of fish,” both the desired and the undesired. Similarly, the Church holds both pleasing truths (human dignity, forgiveness, heaven) and hard truths (sin, judgment, hell). To be Catholic means to assent to all that the Church teaches – not just to the parts we like.

The Church’s history is littered with heresies, a word that indicates the choosing of one truth to the exclusion of others (Greek again haerisis, not kata holos). Those who do so cease to be catholic, because they are embracing not the fullness of the truth but only the parts they like. If we call ourselves catholic, we must show ourselves to be truly catholic, embracing all truths — not just the convenient ones.

Mother Church’s children should bear a resemblance to her. So it is that we ought to strive to be catholic in our zeal for souls, in the reach of our mercy, and in our embrace of the truth.

COLUMN BY

Fr. Paul D. Scalia

Fr. Paul Scalia is a priest of the Diocese of Arlington, Va, where he serves as Episcopal Vicar for Clergy. His new book is That Nothing May Be Lost: Reflections on Catholic Doctrine and Devotion.

EDITORS NOTE: This The Catholic Thing column is republished with permission. © 2020 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to: info@frinstitute.org. The Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own.

Of Workers and Wealth

Pope Leo XIII: Whether we have wealth or lack it makes no difference. What matters is to justly use what we have, especially if we are rich.


The great mistake made in regard to the matter now under consideration is to take up with the notion that class is naturally hostile to class, and that the wealthy and the working men are intended by nature to live in mutual conflict. So irrational and so false is this view that the direct contrary is the truth.

Just as the symmetry of the human frame is the result of the suitable arrangement of the different parts of the body, so in a State is it ordained by nature that these two classes should dwell in harmony and agreement, so as to maintain the balance of the body politic. Each needs the other: capital cannot do without labor, nor labor without capital. Mutual agreement results in the beauty of good order, while perpetual conflict necessarily produces confusion and savage barbarity.

Now, in preventing such strife as this, and in uprooting it, the efficacy of Christian institutions is marvellous and manifold. First of all, there is no intermediary more powerful than religion (whereof the Church is the interpreter and guardian) in drawing the rich and the working class together, by reminding each of its duties to the other, and especially of the obligations of justice.

Of these duties, the following bind the proletarian and the worker: fully and faithfully to perform the work which has been freely and equitably agreed upon; never to injure the property, nor to outrage the person, of an employer; never to resort to violence in defending their own cause, nor to engage in riot or disorder; and to have nothing to do with men of evil principles, who work upon the people with artful promises of great results, and excite foolish hopes which usually end in useless regrets and grievous loss.

The following duties bind the wealthy owner and the employer: not to look upon their work people as their bondsmen, but to respect in every man his dignity as a person ennobled by Christian character. They are reminded that, according to natural reason and Christian philosophy, working for gain is creditable, not shameful, to a man, since it enables him to earn an honorable livelihood; but to misuse men as though they were things in the pursuit of gain, or to value them solely for their physical powers – that is truly shameful and inhuman.

Again justice demands that, in dealing with the working man, religion and the good of his soul must be kept in mind. Hence, the employer is bound to see that the worker has time for his religious duties; that he be not exposed to corrupting influences and dangerous occasions; and that he be not led away to neglect his home and family, or to squander his earnings.

Furthermore, the employer must never tax his work people beyond their strength, or employ them in work unsuited to their sex and age. His great and principal duty is to give every one what is just. Doubtless, before deciding whether wages are fair, many things have to be considered; but wealthy owners and all masters of labor should be mindful of this – that to exercise pressure upon the indigent and the destitute for the sake of gain, and to gather one’s profit out of the need of another, is condemned by all laws, human and divine.

To defraud any one of wages that are his due is a great crime which cries to the avenging anger of Heaven. “Behold, the hire of the laborers. . .which by fraud has been kept back by you, crieth; and the cry of them hath entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.”

Lastly, the rich must religiously refrain from cutting down the workmen’s earnings, whether by force, by fraud, or by usurious dealing; and with all the greater reason because the laboring man is, as a rule, weak and unprotected, and because his slender means should in proportion to their scantiness be accounted sacred. Were these precepts carefully obeyed and followed out, would they not be sufficient of themselves to keep under all strife and all its causes?

But the Church, with Jesus Christ as her Master and Guide, aims higher still. She lays down precepts yet more perfect, and tries to bind class to class in friendliness and good feeling. The things of earth cannot be understood or valued aright without taking into consideration the life to come, the life that will know no death.

Exclude the idea of futurity, and forthwith the very notion of what is good and right would perish; nay, the whole scheme of the universe would become a dark and unfathomable mystery.

The great truth which we learn from nature herself is also the grand Christian dogma on which religion rests as on its foundation – that, when we have given up this present life, then shall we really begin to live. God has not created us for the perishable and transitory things of earth, but for things heavenly and everlasting; He has given us this world as a place of exile, and not as our abiding place.

As for riches and the other things which men call good and desirable, whether we have them in abundance, or are lacking in them-so far as eternal happiness is concerned – it makes no difference; the only important thing is to use them aright. . . .

Therefore, those whom fortune favors are warned that riches do not bring freedom from sorrow and are of no avail for eternal happiness, but rather are obstacles; that the rich should tremble at the threatenings of Jesus Christ – threatenings so unwonted in the mouth of our Lord – and that a most strict account must be given to the Supreme Judge for all we possess.

– from Rerum Novarum (1891)

VIDEO: Completely Mental. Touched. Off his rocker. Out to lunch.

TRANSCRIPT

New Yorkers have a local expression, “That guy’s mental” — as in, “Hey, Louie’s mental.” It’s not a compliment. It means pretty much what it sounds like, that there’s something wrong upstairs.

Well, for the record, Cardinal Dolan’s mental. His reaction and media comments following Governor Cuomo signing the new state abortion law reveals some serious issues upstairs with His Eminence.

He says Cuomo shouldn’t be excommunicated because it would be giving ammo to the enemy — that the Left would seize on the excommunication and portray Cuomo in a sympathetic light. Yeah, they probably would — so what? Is that worse than allowing the world to think — or actually realize — that U.S. bishops are lily-livered cowards when it comes to the hard truths.

Dolan claims it would be counter-productive. What a stupid analysis; counter-productive to what, exactly? What’s counter-productive is letting the world think leaders in the Church don’t think this is a big deal, and what’s worse, other Catholics think it’s not a big deal.

But then again, based on decades of inaction, the world already thinks that. So here’s an opportunity to actually begin to turn things around and set the record straight. The reality is Dolan is an emasculated wimp who looks for excuses to avoid teaching Church teaching.

For example, when he was on FOX & Friends answering questions from the hosts about all this, FOX actually took down and edited out part of the live interview where Dolan simply got it wrong about Church teaching.

He said, in sum, that those involved in an abortion are not excommunicated, in direct defiance of existing canon law. Here’s the exchange:

Steve Doocy: “Have the rules changed inside the Catholic Church, because it used to be pretty black and white about ‘yes, no,’ now you’re saying, ‘Come back.'”

Cardinal Dolan: “Yes, you would say, yeah, you would say that it used to be pretty, pretty clean that an abortion would cause the excommunication not only of the one who did it, people who encourage it and the one who had it. The Church, in the last 50 years, beginning with Pope John Paul II and especially intensified under Pope Francis, has said, ‘I don’t know if that’s Gospel values here’ because mercy trumps everything.”

And this is where we can freely say: Dolan’s mental.

What he said is simply incorrect. Here is canon law — existing, on the books right now — canon law 1398: “A person who procures a completed abortion incurs a latae sententiae excommunication” — meaning, kill the unborn baby and you are automatically excommunicated as well as the “doctor” other personnel and friends or family who conspired in the killing.

Sorry, Cardinal Dolan, you’re wrong — flat out wrong. There are exceptions to the canon — for example, someone physically forced against her will, or a child, but those are exceptions. The rule is the rule, and Dolan seems to have no knowledge of it. And he doesn’t get to say unchallenged that “oh, we are more merciful than that now.”

First of all, that’s wrong, so either he is flat out lying, which can’t be taken off the table, or he is woeful, this prince of the Church, woefully malformed in what the Church actually teaches. Neither option is good.

Secondly, the implication is that for the past 2,000 years the Church has been unmerciful. After all, in a first-century teaching manual — 1900 years old — the Didache, willful abortion incurred expulsion from the sacraments for 10 years.

The Didache was the first recorded teachings of the Apostles themselves. So Dolan says the Apostles were unmerciful. The man is flat out mental. And then, he writes an opinion article in the New York Post where he asks the question, “Why are Cuomo and Democrats alienating Catholics?” — again proving he’s gone completely mental.

The answer, Your Eminence, is because you and so many of your worldly emasculated brethren in the episcopate have been so busy watering down the Faith and confusing them that there aren’t really that many of them left.

Cuomo, being a prime example of that, has done the political calculus and the answer is they don’t give a rip about alienating Catholics because there are so few left that they make no difference at the polls in New York as well as many other places.

Secondly, Dolan and the rest of his mental crowd are the ones who actually helped get these guys elected and keep them elected by their constant sucking up to them and wanting to be seen in pictures with them and rubbing elbows with them and hobnobbing. It’s disgusting. Have some dignity for the love of God. Know your office.

For 10 years in New York, Dolan has been on a PR tour of the local media with his stupid bombastic laugh and “aw shucks” fake persona, thinking he could somehow charm people into believing the truth.

Dolan is viewed as a huckster, a snake oil salesman or a bad used car dude who has nothing to sell that anyone is interested in.

But he has had the prestige of his office — which has eroded tremendously under the weight of his reign — which still has another five years to go — talk about people needing mercy; resign already.

And because of his office, the media love to play him and follow him around and put his picture on the papers; and being mental, he’s believed all of that is good and helpful to the Faith. It reinforces his own bloated self-importance, which is the butt of jokes behind his back.

But — and this is the problem when someone is mental — they don’t understand the world around them. They aren’t plugged in because they lack the capacity to understand the obvious.

Dolan is 0 for 4 in his political dealings. He has been played and used in every political cause he has gone after. First, he lost — if he ever really cared about it — the gay marriage fight in the state back in 2011.

Second, he lost the state funding for Catholic education initiative, something lawmakers, including Cuomo, were never going to give him. And for that deal, he allowed gays into the St. Patrick’s Day parade — and they stabbed him in the back anyway.

Dance with the devil and, well, you know what happens.

Next, Dolan and the gang claiming to care about the abortion law, and he loses that in staggering fashion — unanimous vote in the New York state senate and almost unanimous vote in the state assembly.

And then the fourth “rock his world” defeat is the new law extending the statute of limitations for suing the Church for all their sodomite priests raping altar boys — which they deserve.

Dolan is completely mental, and the reason he is is because he long ago gave up the only job he is supposed to be doing: defending souls. He has been a boy in a man’s game with New York’s Killer Catholic politicos, and they have chopped him to pieces.

Dolan is owned by Cuomo, so much so that Dolan believes the teachings of the Church have changed — completely mental.

EDITORS NOTE: This Church Militant column with video and images is republished with permission.

The Answer To Our Nation’s Ailments Is So Easy To See.

This week has witnessed the destructive and sinister actions of two deranged and evil men who sought to sow havoc and hatred upon others.  The first, of course, was the attempted (or feigned) mail bombings by an unstable individual in Miami targeting prominent Democrats.  The second is the vicious, senseless, and horrible mauling of Jews assembled within their own synagogue in Pittsburgh for the purposes of prayer, fellowship, and worship.  Obviously, neither of these events is in any way tolerable in a Republic or in American society.   And although there is, I expect, complete unanimity on this matter, the consensus breaks down with the attempt at identifying the root cause of our malady.

Many explanations can be posited for the deterioration in the interactions between Americans we have recently witnessed.  Some blame the faster-paced society in which we live.  Others discuss video games and television violence.  Still others suggest that the issue lies in the vitriol with which politicians and reporters alike engage the public and each other.  And of course, the deceitful opportunists will go further and place the blame squarely on the President of the United States.

In reality, the problem is much more elemental than this and vastly more ominous.  What we are witnessing is, quite simply, the latest manifestation of the eternal battle of good against evil where evil is winning.

The devastating consequences of a society’s abandonment of God have played out on numerous occasions.  God’s destruction of His creation in response to widespread corruption, the Jews’ struggles with their own moral frailties as they trekked across the desert in search of the Promised Land, the destruction of Sodom due to its wretchedness even before Lot’s escape, Israel’s suffering brought about by David’s moral indiscretion are but a few examples of the inverse relationship between destruction and famine and closeness to God.

But the association is not merely a physical one. Patrick Henry was correct when he wrote that religion “hath a natural tendency to correct the morals of men, restrain their vices, and preserve the peace of society.”  It was an insight shared by Congress in its creation of the Northwest Ordinance prompting it to include the words in Article 3 of its charter, “Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.”

Unfortunately, the agenda-driven courts bent on sealing any porousness in the wall of separation between church and state described by Thomas Jefferson, abandoned those fundamental concepts.  And the results, similar to the countless examples painted for us in the Bible, have been nothing short of cataclysmic.  In the same time since the courts stripped our schools of prayer, the United States has seen the dissolution of its relationship to God, a deterioration in the collective faith of its citizens, and an acceleration in the hostility, hatred, and overall mayhem taking place within its borders.

Make no mistake about it, what we are witnessing is no less a complete destruction of a society than the evaporation of Sodom.  Only this time the destruction is much more foundational than a physical one.  We are witnessing the destruction of a nation’s soul, and those pointing to Donald Trump, or the Republicans, or social media, or anything short of our devolving devotion to God is losing sight of the real culprit.  The culprit is evil itself, and the only path to salvation lies in following the mandates of a Judeo-Christian God.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in The Federalist Pages. It is republished with permission. The featured photo is by Edward Cisneros on Unsplash.

Stop Gender Genocide

Following the death of Carrie Fisher — and the death one day later of her mother, Debbie Reynolds — I ran across an article about Fisher’s 24-year-old daughter, Billie Lourd.

Fox 2015 programming presentation Red Carpet Arrivals at Wollamn Rink in Central Park  in New York City Featuring: Billie Lourd Where: New York City, New York, United States When: 11 May 2015 Credit: Alberto Reyes/WENN.com

Carrie Fisher’s daughter, Billie Lourd (pictured above) says her mother “raised me without gender.” Photo credit: Alberto Reyes/WENN.com

Lourd proudly spoke about her upbringing at the hands of single mom and admitted drug abuser Carrie Fisher. Lourd boasted that her mother “raised me to not think of men and women as different. She raised me without gender. It’s kind of the reason she named me Billie.”

Yet clearly Billie Lourd is a woman, despite Fisher’s attempts to raise her without any gender identification. She looks and dresses as a woman, and she dates men. Lourd believes her upbringing was a success, but if the intent was to raise her as gender neutral, it was a dismal failure. Nature, it appears, was victorious.

In another example of what today can only be described as gender genocide, the National Geographic magazine put on its December cover a picture of a nine-year-old transgender, a boy dressed as a girl with long, bright pink hair.

Inside, the story details the difficulties little children encounter living as transgenders. One of these little kids had been struggling since he/she was five years old.

Another little girl, age nine, is described as a Muslim living in India who wants to be a boy so she can earn money and “get stuff for her family.” Is that a good enough reason to neutralize this child’s sex? Maybe for that family it is.

It’s hard to believe that children as little as five are actually struggling with their gender identity unless they are coerced into such a struggle by the adults around them. Kids that age are still contemplating the mystery of Santa Claus, not their gender identity.

This is gender genocide — the willful destruction of our biological sex. It’s the last frontier for the gay lobby (the sex lobby, it may as well be called) and its quest for ultimate control over our sexual behavior and identity. This is a deeply sinister social engineering that seeks to indoctrinate children into thinking they can define their own gender, regardless of their God-given gender.

Having conquered the battlefield of gay marriage (in 2015 when the Supreme Court redefined marriage to include same-sex marriage) … the sex lobby has turned its sights on transgender rights and gender fluidity. The more victories they achieve, the more absurd their goals become. Gay rights … gay adoption … gay partner benefits … gay marriage … transgender acceptance … same-sex bathrooms … gender fluidity … new pronouns. Just when it seems the end is in sight and they can’t possibly do more damage to our culture, they move the bar further.

Eliminating God From American Life

But at its heart, this is a movement to eliminate God’s natural order from our lives, plain and simple. It is a twisted effort to undermine the biblical underpinnings of our culture and eradicate the sexes.

The Bible says that in the beginning, “God made them male and female.” (Gen. 5:2) Pretty clear and straight forward, though the sex lobby never likes the word “straight” in any context.  This rock-solid fact is the one immovable force that they cannot surmount, so they have come up with ways around it.

One way is to declare, despite what our eyes tell us, that people can be any sex they want. We only need to decide which sex we identify with in our minds — and voila, that’s the sex we are. And, it must follow, we should be allowed to use the bathroom of our choice absolutely anywhere and everywhere in the United States … especially in our taxpayer-funded schools.

Literally, this new battle is being waged in the toilet.

But at least now we’re getting to the meat of the issue. If the sex lobby can change the attitudes of our children about sex, and encourage them to follow every urge that pops up in their pubescent heads, they will have a captive army of young adults to march out into the world and tear down the Judeo-Christian foundation of our nation.

Like lemmings following each other off a cliff only to drown in the sea, our young people obey, just like Billie Lourd and other Hollywood celebrities do. In the process, though, they position themselves as role models for our kids, and there’s the danger.

Miley Cyrus says she is “gender fluid.”

miley cyrus

Miley Cyrus says she is “gender fluid.”

Miley Cyrus, who performed a music video stark naked on a wrecking ball, claims she is “gender fluid.”

“I’m just equal,” she gushed in an interview. “I’m just even. It has nothing to do with any parts of me or how I dress or how I look. It’s literally how I feel.” She had to add those last few sentences because she has female body parts and dresses like a woman, so don’t be fooled if she looks like a woman, she’s really whatever she wants to be at the moment.

Hypocrisy Of Gender Warriors

The hypocrisy of the gender genocide advocates is stunning. If gender doesn’t matter anymore, why did women go berserk when Hillary did not become the first FEMALE president? If Hillary’s not a she but a “ze” — the preferred neutral pronoun of the gender genocide lobby — then there’s no glass ceiling to break, right?

Witness also the hysteria that followed the publication of a Washington Post magazine article just recently that displayed the wrong symbol for womanhood (they used the male symbol with the circle and arrow, instead of the circle and cross for female). Male and female heads were exploding over the mistake — which the Washington Post apologized for abjectly and corrected right away.

But if gender doesn’t matter, then why do the symbols matter?

For that matter, why was it so important to legalize same-sex marriage? If genders don’t matter, or if they are all in our head, what’s the big deal?

The answer is obvious to even the little children who are being used as petri dishes for the sex lobby’s ungodly experiments. There are boys and there are girls. Period. Even the most strident advocates for gender neutrality recognize this physical reality.

Within the past couple of years hundreds, perhaps thousands, of school districts, institutions and municipalities have jumped on the gender-neutral bandwagon and declared that their bathrooms are open for use by any gender. Men may use the women’s room if they’re feeling a little feminine that day, and vice versa.

No doctor’s note is required to show that a sex change operation has been performed. No psychiatric exam is required, either.

What is so shocking is the lack of thoughtful and reasoned examination of the movement. Schools and public places are just lining up to follow the new guidelines like brainless robots programmed to obey. They should be asking, Where’s the science?

Christians Toe The Line

At a time when the Christian community should be standing up to these attempts to pollute biblical truths, some so-called Christian institutions are toeing the line. One Christian school in the Seattle, Wash., area, sent home notices to all parents that it would be hosting a “coming out day” for its gay and transgender students, and that students may now use the restrooms that correspond to their gender identity.

The alternative is to be forced out of business or suffer staggering fines. The Obama Administration ordered every public school in the nation to cater to transgenders in the restrooms or lose their federal funding. One transgender girl in a Maine public school was awarded $75,000 because her school forced her to use a staff restroom. That’s a scary prospect for a school district that needs the money — money, mind you, already paid by parents in the form of taxes that should rightfully come back to the schools with no gender strings attacks.

Jonas Maines, left, and his transgender sister, Nicole Maines, stand outside the Penobscot Judicial Center, Wednesday, June 12, 2013, in Bangor, Maine. The siblings were born as identical twins boys. The state supreme court heard arguments on Wednesday over a school district’s handling of Nicole Maine's restroom needs. The lawsuit accuses the school district of breaking a state law in 2007 when it stopped letting the Maines use the girls bathroom and required to her use a staff bathroom after a student's grandfather complained. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

Nicole Maines, a boy who is a transgender “girl,” sued a Maine public school for forcing her to use a staff restroom. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

These sick stories remind me of another Bible verse, the one that warns us not to cause children to sin against God.

“If anyone causes one of these little ones — those who believe in me — to stumble,” warned Jesus, “it would be better for them if a large millstone were hung around their neck and they were thrown into the sea.” (Mark 9:42)

bruce reimer

Bruce Reiner was born as a boy, raised as a girl, had surgery to create a vagina and then later committed suicide.

The Sad Case of Bruce Reimer

I am also reminded of the tragic case of Bruce Reimer, born a male with a twin brother, Brian, in Winnipeg, Canada, in the 1960s. Following a botched circumcision Bruce was raised as a girl, Brenda. Doctors fully castrated him as a baby and later gave him female hormones so he could like his entire life as a woman. Bruce’s clueless parents agreed to this.

Enter the evil mad scientist, Dr. John Money, a “sexologist.” It was Money’s theory — as it is the theory of so many in today’s sex-obsessed culture — that gender identity is the product of nurture rather than nature. Dr. Money followed the twins’ progress throughout their tragic lives, forcing them to strip naked in interviews and examine each others’ genitals … and forcing them to re-enact the sex act as male and female while the mad Dr. Money took pictures.

But Brenda, formerly Bruce, knew in his soul that there was something wrong with him, and as time went on he began to live out a more masculine lifestyle — despite Dr. Money’s efforts to force him to behave like a girl. At the age of seven Dr. Money began to torment Brenda with demands that he have surgery to create a vagina. Brenda resisted to the end.

When, as a young adult, Brenda finally learned that he was a male, he immediately began to live as a man and stopped taking the female hormones. He even married a woman and adopted his wife’s children.

But the horror of what had been done to him was too much for both twins. First the twin brother Brian killed himself with an overdose of anti-depressants. Then, at the age of 38, Bruce shot himself in the head with a shotgun.

Dr. Money was allowed to live out his life in comfort until the age of 85 as a renowned sexologist, dying in 2006. Sadly, at least two of his victims killed themselves because they could not live out the false life that Dr. Money had chosen for them.

Are we repeating today the experiments that Dr. Money performed all those years ago? Are we risking the lives and happiness of our children to satisfy the sex lobby’s insatiable appetite for destruction?

Tragic Human Cost

Like the heartbreaking story of Bruce Reimer, which can be viewed here in a BBC documentary, the lifestyles of Billie Lourd and Miley Cyrus are just exotic theories without regard for the tragic human cost. Because despite the “feelings” of these sad and confused individuals, God made them male and female. Their feelings really don’t matter.

Bruce Reiner was born as a boy, raised as a girl, had surgery to create a vagina and then later committed suicide.

Thankfully, we are beginning to see some pushback to all this nonsense. Thirteen states have filed lawsuits against the Obama edict mandating that transgenders have free access to any bathroom (and locker room) of their choice.

In late 2016 a Texas judge blocked Obama’s edict. And in North Carolina officials enacted a ban on forcing public facilities to provide transgender restrooms. (The LGBT lobby is fighting this tooth and nail and vowing to overturn the ban.)

Taken to its illogical extreme — that we are whatever we think we are — then what is to stop me from claiming age fluidity? So what if my birth certificate shows that I’m a senior citizen. I identify as a 24 year old, at least today.

Or, I may be just 24 and identify as a senior citizen …

… so I demand the senior citizen discount.

Foolish it is, this gender genocide is sweeping our nation. But dangerous, too. In Romans 1 we are warned:

“God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.”

And “furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done.” And, “although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.”

God help us if we continue on this path toward the utter and complete genocide of the genders that God ordained for us.