Cosmos-Liturgy-Sex

We finally closed on the house but every step of the way, it looked like it would not happen.  From a loan officer whom we could not get to talk to us to a loan assistant who seemed not to be matched to her particular skill set.  Half way into the process when this became apparent we should have probably cut our losses and went elsewhere.  Any way, unless some surprise pops up (a potential eventuality I am not yet discounting) we may now be officially off the homeless rolls thanks to Shelray’s assistance.

As is usual, I have been quite busy but still have had a chance now and then to keep up on the goings on.  I have been thinking about the unsurprising response of many commentators in the media about the responsibility of the pro-life movement for the killing of notorious abortionist George Tiller along with the broader implications of this response.

Beginning with Mike Hendricks’s illuminating (though not illuminated) blathering in the Kansas City Star and then the subsequent piling on of the likeminded (if I can use the term): see Colby Cosh’s tirade in the National Post, and Ellen Goodman’s tortuous logic in the Boston Globe. The expected theme is the same in all of these: those who call abortion murder are thereby also guilty of Tiller’s murder.  If one looks at the logic flowing from these representatives of the mass media, one finds ominous signs for religious freedom and any speech that does not comport with the ruling party line.

Like BO’s speech at Notre Dame implied, these writers begin with the premise that abortion is not murder.  For BO it may be a significant moral consideration but it is not the killing of an innocent human person.  For BO dispassionate dialog can only begin on this premise.  It is not clear that those represented by the above media representatives are even open to allowing the prolife community a platform.  However, if they are, prolifers must first disavow the equation of abortion with murder.  This is the trap that so-called pro-life/pro-Obama Catholics seem to fall into.  To be invited to the table, they must be willing to reject such inflammatory language as “murder.”

The tactic of censoring speech because it is said to incite violence is nothing new.  The abortion lobby has used it for years and the homosexualist activists have adopted it as well.  However, the circumstances have changed considerably. One who shares this view now has the nation’s bully pulpit and the party most sympathetic to this view now hold dominant majorities in both houses of congress.  This is not to mention that the courts have been increasingly populated with activists who are also more and more likely to abet such a view.

Moreover, abortion is only one plank in the aggressive social restructuring agenda that the current president seems poised to attempt to enact.  His proclamation of June as LGBT pride month was also telling. In making this proclamation, BO put the office of the President squarely against natural law and the Judeo-Christian tradition.  Same sex attraction and gender identity disorders are now protected, nay, preferred and promoted lifestyle choices (see this LifeSiteNews article for an example of the results of this distorted way of thinking).  However, there is a stumbling block in the way of such an ambitious project.  We are beginning to see the administration’s strategy for overcoming this “problem.”

The actions of the Obama administration in appointing radically pro-abortion and anti-family “Catholic” zealots to executive and judicial posts, and its promoting of relationships with “Catholic” notables and organizations that are attempting to attenuate the significance of Catholic cooperating with pro-abortion policies all seem aimed at developing a dissenting “anti-magisterium” that can offset the authority of the only authoritative and organized voice against abortion and for protecting the natural family.  The Catholic Church is in fact the biggest threat to this social restructuring agenda.  No opportunity will be passed up in the attempt to marginalize, discredit, counter, or silence the truth about the human person proclaimed by the Catholic Church in the US.  The media’s response to the Tiller murder illustrates this.

Cosh’s comments are the most illuminating.  He indicates that if abortion is murder, then Tiller’s murder is justified and the pro-life community has to embrace this.  The others writers implicitly accept this when they say that calling abortion murder makes violence the logical consequence.  Obama’s response to the murder seems to imply the same.  For all of their talk of peace and justice, this logic betrays an implied threat to both.

I believe these rumblings to be ominous because they share the thinking of Robespierre and the purveyors of the Reign of Terror.  Declaring themselves the guardians of liberty, they mean their own liberty to act as they wish with no limitations placed upon them.  They have an implicit distrust others because their own will is made the arbiter of truth and so there is no way of adjudicating between competing wills other than through means of force.  Those who do not readily accept their assertions cannot be reasoned with for there is no defensible use of reasoned arguments in their assertions.  Thus, violence on their part is an ever looming threat.  What we are now seeing appears to be the preparations for justifying such violence (intended or not).

By no means is the majority of the country yet with this agenda.  However, neither does it have the intellectual or moral formation to defeat it on its own.  To overcome the current threat, we require the clear and unwavering voice of the Catholic Church.  This is what we began to see from the bishops during the last election and what we saw with the Notre Dame scandal.  The bishops see the impending threat and many are beginning to respond.  I think that the majority within the country is still influenced by natural law and the Gospel.  However, they require our faithful and continuing witness if we are to overcome the deleterious effects of the mass media engine and the bully pulpit of the current administration.