A Leaven In The World… Silence Implies Consent
By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK
Why are protests breaking out all over the USA and almost every week? People know in their hearts that silence can imply consent; they vehemently deplore the resurgence of common sense and America First and thus are speaking out.
We’ve seen the annual March for Life joined this year by the Women’s (pro-abortion) March on Washington and other cities around the world, a Day Without Immigrants where people participated by walking off the job, a day for refusing to buy anything, and the list will probably go on. People are deeply aggrieved because change is in the offing.
Pro-lifers have marched on Washington since 1974, the year after Roe v. Wade declared an entire class of human beings at risk by legalizing the slaughter of the preborn. The rise of Trump and “flyover” country, building for years since the left has taken rebellion against God and nature to its most ridiculous extremes, has finally made its voice heard in the results of the 2016 presidential election.
The talking heads and old media who think the movement is about Trump still don’t get it. The fact is that Trump, the master of the art of the deal, simply tapped into an existing market to provide what consumers desired.
Lawlessness and much of the immorality in our nation have been blessed from the top for a long time. A constituency bred on truancy, living in parents’ basements, joblessness, and crime to feed drug habits has grown like a cancer. You could probably add your own examples to the list.
But like a cancer doctor on the job, President Trump has been brought in to start chemotherapy and radiation on the growing and malign mass of bureaucracies and race-baiting leftist hordes. The fact that childish name-calling gets any traction in the press without proof indicates that the media are cooperating with the Soros-employed professional protesters.
At times the show turns comic, as when the brave anti-establishment guerrillas in D.C. burned the car of an immigrant Muslim and a shelter where lower-income folks wait for the bus in inclement weather on Inauguration Day. Perhaps nothing could have emphasized more the need for the man taking the oath of the presidency just a few blocks away, just when this injury to common people was inflicted supposedly in their name.
The voters finally spoke in 2016 because they realized that their silence at the ballot box for so many years had implied consent to a growing danger aided and abetted by lying politicians who were selling America off to the agenda of our enemies.
The “four cardinals,” about whom we have heard so much in the wake of Amoris Laetitia, also realize that silence implies consent and thus have spoken out through their dubia that have been submitted to Pope Francis. Does the Pope’s resounding silence in answer to the questions of their dubia imply consent?
Knowing that their silence on the anomalous elements of Amoris Laetitia, which many have already said conflicts with settled teaching reiterated by St. John Paul II on Communion for the divorced and civilly remarried, might exacerbate the growing confusion among the flock, Raymond Cardinal Burke and three other cardinals spoke out.
A monsignor working at the Vatican Secretariat of State, as described by blogger Fra Cristoforo at anonimidellacroce.wordpress.com, was overheard recently speaking to a lay person at a café near the Porta Santa Anna on the dubia and other innovations to come. He was quoted as saying that the Pope won’t speak out on the dubia because he does not want to “stoop to their level,” in reference to the four cardinals. He also said that the next move for the Pope will be to advance the cause of diaconal ordination for women by November.
Eucharist for material adulterers, or doubling down on the dubia, will be joined in the pantheon of Protestantizing practices by “donna” (the Italian word for woman) deacons, if the monsignor proves accurate. A perennially plastic body of opinions will turn out to be personal projection for the Roman rebels.
The Magisterium and Tradition continue to prickle the progressives with their uncomfortable perennial presence.
The attacks on Trump’s mental health after his recent solo marathon press conference prove just how crazed for illegal immigration and other anti-American practices are the lobbyists within the body politic. The ongoing campaign to vilify Cardinal Burke and all those who support him for following his conscience is much like it.
Instead of engaging in respect with those who differ, some continue to present themselves as model Christians. The camp in the Church that repeatedly calls for dialogue and accompaniment while refusing it to certain others, such as Cardinal Burke, looks the hypocrite.
At a recent meeting with his cardinal archbishop, a priest was surrounded by three deaneries of about 30 priests who complained of various maladies afflicting parish life. One wanted more speaking out from bishops against contraception and another faulted Pope Francis for not specifically mentioning natural family planning in Amoris Laetitia. The current movement away from church weddings and toward gazebos and other outdoor venues was likewise bemoaned.
One of the priests spoke up in Pope Francis’ defense to remind the others that the Church does not officially teach or endorse any one method of the natural regulation of births in preference to others, as there is, in fact, more than one. And, more to the point, just as the Pope mentions “responsible parenthood” in Amoris Laetitia, so the Church, in excluding the use of the marital act in an anti-life way through contraception, reminds us that the marital act should always be open to new life. Along with this goes the teaching that regulation or spacing of births should be undertaken only in case of grave reason.
Some young pro-Humanae Vitae couples seeking marriage today say that they actually don’t need to learn NFP because they don’t ever plan to need it, which, of course, is their decision to make.
How many of us have forgotten or lack the courage to state the simple truth that marriage is for the sake of family just as the marital act, regardless of fertility or other issues, is given by God for the bearing and raising of children?
The same priest was merely scratching his ear when the archbishop called upon him again, perhaps in the hope that more positive support was in the offing. The priest in fact did report positive stories of growth in his parish, both new families and young adults joining.
Some of the accompaniment called for by Pope Francis is being accomplished by our lay folks. These are inviting others to Mass, who then continue and commit to it, bringing their spouses and children along in authentic witness to the truth. The priest, however, prudently withheld the information that all of this increased activity was exclusively within his Traditional Latin Mass community. Some persons in the Church, including some bishops, still can’t handle the truth and refuse to believe that the path to the future passes by way of the Tradition.
Sometimes the gentlest form of accompaniment is to let people find out the rest of the story for themselves.
Thank you for reading and praised be Jesus Christ, now and forever.
@MCITLFrAphorism
