The Democrat Party Will Take Away Religious Freedom
Lifesite News has published an important article about a new program in Quebec that will impose a relativist educational agenda on all schools in the province, public and private, as well as on all homeschoolers.
The program is entitled “Ethics and Religious Culture,” and it will be mandated from grade one until the end of high school. Here are some features of the program: 1) it presents homosexual “marriage” as a laudable lifestyle choice; 2) it presents all religions as equal, because equally the product of cultural construction; 3) it numbers “abortion rights” advocates among the greatest 20th century heroes in the struggle for human freedom.
As some have noted, this program is a harbinger of things to come throughout the continent. I would point out that it is an inevitable consequence of socialism. It is precisely the sort of program that the Democrat Party, if given control over all of the branches of government, will impose upon the U.S.
A Nancy Pelosi-led congress, aided and abetted by a Barack Obama presidency, would impose such programs upon American federal education, and even upon private schools. The Democrats are out for pure and absolute power over your lives. They will seek to eliminate educational choice, free political speech, and religious freedom. They will seek to eliminate home schooling, the real alternative media (through the so-called fairness doctrine), and the ultimate control of the Magisterium of the Church over the Church’s institutions.
All of this follows, as I have said many times, from the fact that socialists cannot tolerate societies other than the State bearing authority (educational or otherwise) in our lives.
There is no moral equivalvence between the Democrats and the Republicans on this issue. As has been well reported, Archbishop Burke has said that the Democrat Party risks becoming the party of death. Well, all of this follows from their vision of the cosmos, of history, and of the political order. There can be no patching up their vision of things with a few pro-lifers placed in the Party, here or there. Their whole Platform would have to be changed.
A warning to all Catholics: anything that you might do in this election to help the Democrats win, in either congress or the presidency, is a choice that you are making against your own religious freedom.
Update: Andrew McCarthy at National Review has a good post up illustrating what I am talking about: Obama uses the law to silence his opponents. See: Obama’s Tyranny
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Your post is alarmist and apocalyptic. And thus I agree entirely. The right response to the coming and present dystopia is extreme dyspepsia. it’s not just about abortion, or sexuality, or nat’l security, or whatever; it’s also about the libertas ecclesiae, the right of the church to order her own affairs. So Amen.
By the way, feel free to add me to your blogroll, if it would be possible.
Comment by Irenaeus — September 30, 2008 @ 11:25 pm
So soon we can be just like Russia where 64% of all pregnancies end in abortion.Then in 10 or 15 years we will be asking, “What happened?” There is no blessing for a country which chooses to kill it’s young either by complacency or by cooperation.
Comment by Elizabeth — October 1, 2008 @ 4:10 pm
One of my old theology professors - a former primate of the Benedictine Order - warned us on more than one occasion that pursuing the priesthood could very well lead to a white martyrdom at best, a red at the worst, given the current direction of society.
It used to amuse us slightly, as we’d raise an eyebrow at the notion. As I get older, though, and things get worse out there… my eyebrow doesn’t raise quite as high as it used to.
Comment by Josh Miller — October 1, 2008 @ 9:41 pm
Hi, devil’s advocate again. This time looking for personal advice, possibly therapeutic. Between your blog -a proclaimer of truth- and Diogene’s blog on Catholic World News.com, the sarcasm and angst is so extreme, it is easier for me to attend mass purely as a means of revolting against my own culture, but when dissected, I can barely claim any love for my faith.
So…How do you fight modern secularism and maintain your joyful hope? What is the point of faith if you are always angry and bitter. It makes the faith look like a horrible burden best discarded for one’s own sanity. ***Though, thanks for fighting for the weaklings like me that can’t.***(Most of my youth I spent against you secretly rooting for you).
So again, are you EVER joyful, and how do you keep focus in the midst of a war?
Comment by Francis — October 2, 2008 @ 12:27 am
Francis,
My recent posts have been directed at those who see a moral equivalence between Republicans and Democrats. I am trying to show directly and strongly that this election season poses a stark option. I am doing this as someone who is not even inclined to favor Republican economic policies.
I do not think that I have been sarcastic about it. Frankly, I re-read the post above, and it seems rather matter-of-fact to me, though the facts themselves may strike one as apocalyptic (and also as angry or bitter). But a fact is a fact: in this case, that an ideological commitment to socialism will naturally lead one to want to put an end to prepolitical communities. That’s the whole basis of social engineering.
I am very metaphysically minded. I am strongly focused on the connection between ultimate, implicit philosophical commitments and practical action. Pointing out these connections to people can be very unsettling business.
Also, even if you did not have the faith, the current situation would be an unpleasant prospect. Our present national movement toward socialism is not only at odds with one’s faith, but with one’s very humanity.
One does not have to be religious or Christian to dread the prospect of a Barack Obama presidency and so to fight against it: read Andrew McCarthy’s article, to which I linked (I don’t even think that McCarthy is a Christian).
The problem is that the mainstream media has been negligent in their duty to portray honestly the true character of Barack Obama. And John McCain has not taken an honest measure of his opponent, which is why he’s currently getting destroyed in the polls. I feel almost duty bound to bring out the ideological points that McCain does not even know how to touch.
I’m sorry if I’ve made this blog too political. But I think that the choice we face in the current election cycle is of great importance.
And, frankly, I don’t post very often anyway. If something strikes me once every week or two that I think needs to be said, I say it. David would blog more, but he’s teaching a full course load at present.
You can always visit other weblogs that avoid these sorts of political and cultural battles, and whose primary purpose is spiritual edification. Catholic World News would not be a very good alternative for such a purpose. But Amy Welborn may be.
Comment by hierothee — October 2, 2008 @ 3:31 am
Francis,
My two cents worth. Joy is not to be equated with affective experience, though they can and ought to sometimes correspond. One can experience joy in the midst of turmoil because it is more than a pleasurable affect.
That said, it is easy to allow the fallness of the world to color the way one sees everything and so create a sort of dark pall over one’s outlook. But you say what is the purpose of faith if one is always angry and bitter. The purpose of faith is not first, a remedy to worldly negative affects. It is the profession and living of the truth. As one becomes more and more spiritually advanced, he experiences less and less affective joy for the sake of being able to give himself to God for His sake and not for the sake of the good feelings he might get for so doing. Living the faith has value and importance well beyond the emotional support that does in fact come with it.
The tension between fighting the good fight of faith and living a joyful life in which one is not always angry and bitter, though one cannot avoid the suffering attendant with seeing the ill fruits of the world’s fallenness, is to recall Jesus’ words to His disciples when He said in this world you will experience travail but do not despair, I have conquered the world.
I think that the over emphasis on affect may also help to clarify what you mean by your inability to claim love for your faith. Love is not an emotion. Thus, one does not need to feel good feelings in order to love. Albeit, that the emotions were meant to accord with reason and if all things are working correctly, the feelings ought to correspond to the state of the intellect. Nevertheless, man has the faculties of intellect and will. He can choose to love, which in the end is an act of the intellect to know another, and the will to choose the good of another for his own sake–an act of total self gift, even if he does not get the corresponding affects that one would normally expect in such situations.
To over come the negative affects when one sees a culture and world that seems in so many ways, wedded to self-destructive behavior that is likewise, antithetical to the gospel, is to avoid the temptation to personify a culture or a political party or whatever. It is to look at the individuals who comprise the culture and to see them as God sees them. Even for those who lead the world astray, one must see them as persons for whom Christ died and as souls for whom heaven may one day rejoice in their conversion to the truth. We also must recognize our mission which is first to be faithful to God and to witness to His truth in our capacities that our vocations avail us. It is to recognize our own sinfulness and its contribution to this culture of death and to work all the more hard to continually convert ourselves, knowing our failure to do so may make us more morally culpable than those who commit objectively graver sins but who may be less culpable due to invincible ignorance.
For what it is worth…
Comment by David — October 2, 2008 @ 10:45 am
Irenaeus - By the way, feel free to add me to your blogroll, if it would be possible.
ok
Comment by shelray — October 3, 2008 @ 10:59 am