Thursday 28th March 2024

Home » Frontpage » Currently Reading:

“Catholic Majority” On High Court… Helps Put Nation In Danger Through Lawless Decisions

July 8, 2015 Frontpage No Comments

By DEXTER DUGGAN

As the workweek concluded on June 26, national radio talk host Hugh Hewitt declared it to be a week “pivotal in the life of the country.”
On two successive days, June 25 and 26, the Catholic-majority U.S. Supreme Court had issued two utterly baseless, lawless decisions affecting everyone’s life here, and what the rest of the world sees as the example set by America.
Especially dangerous was the court’s obvious assumption that its mere majority vote was enough to compel national obedience — even though the court’s opinions were clearly, demonstrably false, and contrived.
With our basic liberties and rights limited by such deceits, a national alarm must be sounded that this court must firmly be brought to heel before justices can complete bringing us into submission.
Chief Justice John Roberts’ decision upholding Obamacare was so pathetic that a person might have thought of Roberts as a U.S. POW being held by Communist Vietnam 45 years ago, blinking his eyes in Morse code in a propaganda film, revealing that he didn’t actually mean a word of his statement, extracted under duress by captor Obama.
On June 25, in King v. Burwell, the court, including three of its Catholics plus the three non-Catholics, upheld dangerous, death-dealing Obamacare when everything in the case called out for a rejection.
Writing the majority opinion, the Catholic Roberts stood plain law and language on their head, as he also did in 2012, both times saving the life of lawless Obamacare when it seemed destined for the scrapheap. As long as Obamacare lives, no one’s life is secure from malign bureaucratic meddling in medicine and insurance.
The next day, June 26, in Obergefell v. Hodges, Catholic Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the 5-4 majority, joined by Catholic Justice Sonia Sotomayor and the three non-Catholics.
They invented homosexual “marriage” as a fundamental constitutional right, despite being warned of the grave consequences this carried for, among other things, truth, religious liberty, conscience, and the social order.
The narrow Obergefell majority left no doubt that in their view, opposition to unprecedented, unjustifiable homosexual privilege is nothing more than bigotry and prejudice.
When moral traditionalists’ very conscience and liberty are at the mercy of judges who make up rulings out of thin air, the threat couldn’t be plainer for the nation’s future.
Imagine if traffic police were free on their own whim to decide what amount of velocity constituted a speeding violation, what amount of alcohol consumption constituted drunken driving, and how many dead pedestrians constituted any vehicular homicide at all. And then issued the guilty or not guilty verdict right there on the roadside.
That is the formless sort of law the Supreme Court has taken to the highest level. And while some traffic cop may be open to taking a motorist’s bribe to secure lenient treatment, the justices get their unmatchable rewards from the regal lords of the legal, academic, and media establishments at war against America’s welfare.
Through the vagaries of politics and events, the nation’s highest court has ended up with six Catholics among its nine members, unprecedented in the country’s history and certainly not reflecting anything like the population. There isn’t a single Protestant on the highest court of this majority-Protestant nation.
If the legal/political sympathies of the justices were differently balanced, liberal media would be howling from the rooftops to change this religious alignment.
However, as long as the famous breed of a “bad Catholic” or two can be found on the bench — like the Nancy Pelosis and Joe Bidens of the liberal Democrat political world — these media are perfectly pleased.
Catholic Justice Sonia Sotomayor stands with the court’s rock-hard bloc of liberals Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, and Elena Kagan. If they just can lure one of the court’s other five Catholics to their side for a decision, they win.
On Obamacare, they lured both Roberts and Kennedy. On marriage, they lured Kennedy, and that was plenty.
The other three justices, basically firm conservatives who honor the core tenets of Catholicism, are Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, and Samuel Alito.
Not that anyone should expect justices to rule according to their religion. Except that many of the cases that make their way to the justices these days deal with basic principles that used to be pretty much agreed on morally in society, but now are not, thanks to liberal redefining and intransigence.
In his dissent in the homosexual “marriage” case, Scalia noted the strange imbalance on the court and declared, “no social transformation without representation.” (That case is discussed further elsewhere in this issue of The Wanderer; see p. 5A for this writer’s coverage of it.)
All nine of the justices went to the Harvard or Yale Law Schools, four are natives of New York City, and eight grew up in East or West Coast states, Scalia noted, adding, “Only one hails from the vast expanse in-between.” Not only are there no evangelical Christians, he said, but no Protestants at all.
Most people don’t read Supreme Court decisions. Ignoring their wording is a worse idea for the national welfare than ordering chicken sandwiches then gulping them down whole, without any idea if they’re made of meat or sawdust. A steady diet of sawdust eventually expresses itself through poor health. Unexamined High Court decisions have helped bring us to the current sorry status of our national health.
Perhaps because they know few citizens will examine their reasoning, justices may feel free to pack their decisions with sawdust. If they had to account to most voters for what they wrote, they could show more respect for the law.
Supreme Court justices acting like emperors might as well just give their thumbs-up or thumbs-down verdict on cases without bothering to write an opinion.
Their conclusion still would have the clout that counts, but they’d spare themselves the embarrassment of having to be down on paper, revealing their risible contortions to reach a predetermined result.
For the second time in three years, Chief Justice Roberts, appointed by Republican President George W. Bush, simply made things up in order to placate lawless Democrat Obama and prevent his Obamacare from collapsing due to its own skullduggery.
The words Roberts needed to find to reach a pro-Obamacare decision just weren’t there, but Roberts said Congress meant well anyway, so that was enough for him. This was completely different from his literalist position the following day on same-sex “marriage,” where Roberts in dissent correctly pointed out there was no justification whatever for the Obergefell majority.
Neither the Obergefell petitioners nor the court majority cited “a single case or other legal source providing any basis for such a constitutional claim. None exists, and that is enough to foreclose their claim,” Roberts wrote.
In the other decision, King v. Burwell, the issue was whether the vital subsidies to support Obamacare had to come through the exchanges established by states, or whether they also were available on a federal exchange.
Roberts frankly conceded that the law specified “an exchange established by the state.” And “that’s a problem,” he said, if we use “the most natural meaning.”
Proponents of Obamacare, desperately fearful of how weak their case was, had been putting the word out through friendly media sources for months that “established by the state” were just four words in the law that should be ignored, just a little “gaffe” that didn’t count.
It was widely believed Obamacare would collapse if the subsidies were limited to state exchanges, because relatively few states decided to establish them. This inaction by the states was contrary to the expectations of key Obamacare architects like too-brainy blabbermouth Jonathan Gruber, who openly stated in 2012:
“I think what’s important to remember politically about this is, if you’re a state and you don’t set up an exchange, that means your citizens don’t get their tax credits. . . . I hope that’s a blatant enough political reality that states will get their act together and realize there are billions of dollars at stake here in setting up these exchanges, and that they’ll do it.”
In his Burwell dissent, Scalia noted that it was entirely plausible the subsidies “were restricted to state exchanges deliberately — for example, in order to encourage states to establish their own exchanges. We therefore have no authority to dismiss the terms of the law as a drafting fumble.”
Scalia noted that the Burwell majority wanted the actual wording ignored as “inartful drafting.”
“This court, however, has no free-floating power ‘to rescue Congress from its drafting errors’.”
Roberts actually mentioned some scandals in the way Obamacare was rammed and jammed through Congress by a desperate Obama, aware of the growing opposition to his federalized medical dictatorship and fearing it would fall apart. How could Roberts be so candid but vote to uphold it?
To recur to the comparison of Roberts being a POW imprisoned by captor Obama, it’s almost as if the chief justice were saying, “I don’t want to do this, but I’m bring forced to. Please understand.”
Conceding that Obamacare “contains more than a few examples of inartful drafting,” Roberts recalled that “Congress wrote key parts of the act behind closed doors, rather than through ‘the traditional legislative process’.”
The Democrat-controlled Congress also “passed much of the act using a complicated budgetary procedure known as ‘reconciliation,’ which limited opportunities for debate and amendment, and bypassed the Senate’s normal 60-vote filibuster requirement,” Roberts conceded.
“As a result,” Roberts said, “the act does not reflect the type of care and deliberation that one might expect of such significant legislation.”
In his decision, Roberts even proceeded to mention a cartoon in which a senator is saying, “I admit this new bill is too complicated to understand. We’ll just have to pass it to find out what it means.”
As for the actual Supreme Court case, “Petitioners’ arguments about the plain meaning . . . are strong,” Roberts conceded. However, “In this instance, the context and structure of the act compel us to depart from what would otherwise be the most natural reading of the pertinent statutory phrase.”
One can only imagine Emperor Obama’s glee at the sad spectacle of the chief justice abasing himself. Obama had used threats, bribes and brazen lies to ram Obamacare through, with the result that it was a legal mess that Obama repeatedly made illegal adjustments to.
Now, when the law’s faults had brought it before the highest court for the second time in three years, Roberts twisted himself into a pretzel again to save it rather than demand that Congress clean up the monstrosity.
It’s not that Obama can do no wrong. He can do everything wrong and get away with it.

From Activism To Oligarchy

In his dissent, Scalia mourned, “Today’s interpretation is not merely unnatural; it is unheard of.”
In a statement posted June 26 at National Review, conservative GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz said:
“This week, we have twice seen Supreme Court justices violating their judicial oaths. Yesterday, the justices rewrote Obamacare, yet again, in order to force this failed law on the American people. Today, the court doubled down with a 5-4 opinion that undermines not just the definition of marriage, but the very foundations of our representative form of government. . . .
“Sadly, the political reaction from the leaders of my party is all too predictable,” Cruz added. “They will pretend to be incensed, and then plan to do absolutely nothing. That is unacceptable. . . .
“By redefining the meaning of common words, and redesigning the most basic human institutions, this court has crossed from the realm of activism into the arena of oligarchy,” Cruz said.

Share Button

2019 The Wanderer Printing Co.

Vatican and USCCB leave transgender policy texts unpublished

While U.S. bishops have made headlines for releasing policies addressing gender identity and pastoral ministry, guidelines on the subject have been drafted but not published by both the U.S. bishops’ conference and the Vatican’s doctrinal office, leaving diocesan bishops to…Continue Reading

Biden says Pope Francis told him to continue receiving communion, amid scrutiny over pro-abortion policies

President Biden said that Pope Francis, during their meeting Friday in Vatican City, told him that he should continue to receive communion, amid heightened scrutiny of the Catholic president’s pro-abortion policies.  The president, following the approximately 90-minute-long meeting, a key…Continue Reading

Federal judge rules in favor of Gov. DeSantis’ mask mandate ban

MIAMI (LifeSiteNews) – A federal judge this week handed Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis another legal victory on his mask mandate ban for schools. On Wednesday, Judge K. Michael Moore of the Southern District of Florida denied a petition from…Continue Reading

The Eucharist should not be received unworthily, says Nigerian cardinal

Priests have a duty to remind Catholics not to receive the Eucharist in a state of serious sin and to make confession easily available, a Nigerian cardinal said at the International Eucharistic Congress on Thursday. “It is still the doctrine…Continue Reading

Donald Trump takes a swipe at Catholics and Jews who did not vote for him

Donald Trump complained about Catholics and Jews who did not vote for him in 2020. The former president made the comments in a conference call featuring religious leaders. The move could be seen to shore up his religious conservative base…Continue Reading

Y Gov. Kathy Hochul Admits Andrew Cuomo Covered Up COVID Deaths, 12,000 More Died Than Reported

When it comes to protecting people from COVID, Andrew Cuomo is already the worst governor in America. New York has the second highest death rate per capita, in part because he signed an executive order putting COVID patients in nursing…Continue Reading

Prayers For Cardinal Burke . . . U.S. Cardinal Burke says he has tested positive for COVID-19

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — U.S. Cardinal Raymond L. Burke said he has tested positive for the virus that causes COVID-19. In an Aug. 10 tweet, he wrote: “Praised be Jesus Christ! I wish to inform you that I have recently…Continue Reading

Democrats Block Amendment Banning Late-Term Abortions, Stopping Abortions Up to Birth

Senate Democrats have blocked an amendment that would ban abortions on babies older than 20 weeks. During consideration of the multi-trillion spending package, pro-life Louisiana Senator John Kennedy filed an amendment to ban late-term abortions, but Democrats steadfastly support killing…Continue Reading

Transgender student wins as U.S. Supreme Court rebuffs bathroom appeal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday handed a victory to a transgender former public high school student who waged a six-year legal battle against a Virginia county school board that had barred him from using the bathroom corresponding…Continue Reading

New York priest accused by security guard of assault confirms charges have now been dropped

NEW YORK, June 17, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — A New York priest has made his first public statement regarding the dismissal of charges against him.  Today Father George W. Rutler reached out to LifeSiteNews and other media today with the following…Continue Reading

21,000 sign petition protesting US Catholic bishops vote on Biden, abortion

More than 21,000 people have signed a letter calling for U.S. Catholic bishops to cancel a planned vote on whether President Biden should receive communion.  Biden, a Catholic, supports abortion rights and has long come under attack from some Catholics over that…Continue Reading

Bishop Gorman seeks candidates to fill two full time AP level teaching positions for the 2021-2022 school year in the subject areas of Calculus/Statistics and Physics

Bishop Thomas K. Gorman Regional Catholic School is a college preparatory school located in Tyler, Texas. It is an educational ministry of the Catholic Diocese of Tyler led by Bishop Joseph Strickland. The sixth through twelfth grade school provides a…Continue Reading

Untitled 5 Untitled 2

Attention Readers:

  Welcome to our website. Readers who are familiar with The Wanderer know we have been providing Catholic news and orthodox commentary for 150 years in our weekly print edition.


  Our daily version offers only some of what we publish weekly in print. To take advantage of everything The Wanderer publishes, we encourage you to su
bscribe to our flagship weekly print edition, which is mailed every Friday or, if you want to view it in its entirety online, you can subscribe to the E-edition, which is a replica of the print edition.
 
  Our daily edition includes: a selection of material from recent issues of our print edition, news stories updated daily from renowned news sources, access to archives from The Wanderer from the past 10 years, available at a minimum charge (this will be expanded as time goes on). Also: regularly updated features where we go back in time and highlight various columns and news items covered in The Wanderer over the past 150 years. And: a comments section in which your remarks are encouraged, both good and bad, including suggestions.
 
  We encourage you to become a daily visitor to our site. If you appreciate our site, tell your friends. As Catholics we must band together to rediscover our faith and share it with the world if we are to effectively counter a society whose moral culture seems to have no boundaries and a government whose rapidly extending reach threatens to extinguish the rights of people of faith to practice their religion (witness the HHS mandate). Now more than ever, vehicles like The Wanderer are needed for clarification and guidance on the issues of the day.

Catholic, conservative, orthodox, and loyal to the Magisterium have been this journal’s hallmarks for five generations. God willing, our message will continue well into this century and beyond.

Joseph Matt
President, The Wanderer Printing Co.

Untitled 1

Catechism

Today . . .

Abortion Advocates No Longer Consider It “A Necessary Evil,” They Celebrate Killing Babies

Last week, Kamala Harris became the first vice president in U.S. history to make a public visit to an abortion clinic. Though the Democratic party’s support for abortion is nothing new, Harris’ Planned Parenthood appearance does illustrate how that support has become a flagrant celebration of abortion as a public and personal good, essential to both “freedom” and to “healthcare.” At the appearance, Harris proclaimed,  It is only right and fair that people have access…Continue Reading

Wisconsin Supreme Court says Catholic charity group cannot claim religious tax exemption

The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that a major Catholic charity group’s activities were not “primarily” religious under state law, stripping the group of a key tax break and ordering it to pay into the state unemployment system. Catholic Charities Bureau (CCB) last year argued that the state had improperly removed its designation as a religious organization.  The charity filed a lawsuit after the state said it did not qualify to be considered as an organization…Continue Reading

Walgreens and CVS Will Start Selling Abortion Pills That Kill Babies

The two largest pharmacies in America will start selling abortion pills this month that end the lives of unborn children by starting them to death. Walgreens and CVS will both sell the abortion pills despite the fact that they kill a developing human being and have killed at least dozens of women and injured tens of thousands more. They plan to initially roll out abortion drug sales in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, California…Continue Reading

Cardinal Burke announces novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe for ‘crises of our age’

VATICAN CITY (PerMariam) — Raymond Cardinal Burke has announced the start of a global, nine-month novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe, calling on Catholics to beseech Mary’s intercession on the Church and the world in the face of the “crises of our age.” In a new endeavour published online over the weekend, Cardinal Burke announced a novena beginning in March, and culminating on the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe on December 12.

Texas attorney general targets Catholic nonprofit, alleges it facilitates illegal immigration

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Feb 21, 2024 / 21:15 pm Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is trying to shut down a Catholic nonprofit organization in El Paso based on allegations that the group may be facilitating illegal immigration, harboring immigrants who entered the country illegally, and engaging in human smuggling.  Paxton filed a lawsuit against the nonprofit Annunciation House, which has operated in the state for nearly 50 years. The lawsuit asks the District Court of El Paso…Continue Reading

The King of Kings

Cindy Paslawski We are at the end of the Church year. We began with Advent a year ago, commemorating the time awaiting the coming of the Christ and we are ending these weeks later with a vision of the future, a vision of Christ the King of the Universe on His throne before us all.…Continue Reading

7,000 Pro-Lifers March In London

By STEVEN ERTELT LONDON (LifeNews) — Over the weekend, some seven thousand pro-life people in the UK participated in the March for Life in London to protest abortion.They marched to Parliament Square on Saturday, September 2 under the banner of “Freedom to Live” and had to deal with a handful of radical abortion activists.During the…Continue Reading

An Appeal For Prayer For The Armenian People

By RAYMOND LEO CARDINAL BURKE (Editor’s Note: His Eminence Raymond Cardinal Burke on August 29, 2023, issued this prayer for the Armenian people, noting their unceasing love for Christ, even in the face of persecution.) + + On the Feast of the Beheading of St. John the Baptist, having a few days ago celebrated the…Continue Reading

Robert Hickson, Founding Member Of Christendom College, Dies At 80

By MAIKE HICKSON FRONT ROYAL, Va. (LifeSiteNews) — Robert David Hickson, Jr., of Front Royal, Va., died at his home on September 2, 2023, at 21:29 p.m. after several months of suffering and after having received the Last Rites of the Catholic Church. He was surrounded by friends and family.Robert is survived by me —…Continue Reading

The Real Hero Of “Sound of Freedom”… Says The Film Has Strengthened The Fight Against Child Trafficking

By ANA PAULA MORALES (CNA) —Tim Ballard, a former U.S. Homeland Security agent who risked his life to fight child trafficking, discussed the impact of the movie Sound of Freedom, which is based on his work, in an August 29 interview with ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. “I’ve spent more than 20 years helping…Continue Reading

Advertisement

Our Catholic Faith (Section B of print edition)

Catholic Replies

Editor’s Note: This lesson on medical-moral issues is taken from the book Catholicism & Ethics. Please feel free to use the series for high schoolers or adults. We will continue to welcome your questions for the column as well. The email and postal addresses are given at the end of this column. Special Course On Catholicism And Ethics (Pages 53-59)…Continue Reading

Color Politics An Impediment To Faith

By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK The USCCB is rightly concerned about racism, as they should be about any sin. In the 2018 statement Open Wide Our Hearts, they affirm the dignity of every human person: “But racism still profoundly affects our culture, and it has no place in the Christian heart. This evil causes great harm to its victims, and…Continue Reading

Trademarks Of The True Messiah

By MSGR. CHARLES POPE (Editor’s Note: Msgr. Charles Pope posted this essay on September 2, and it is reprinted here with permission.) + + In Sunday’s Gospel the Lord firmly sets before us the need for the cross, not as an end in itself, but as the way to glory. Let’s consider the Gospel in three stages.First: The Pattern That…Continue Reading

A Beacon Of Light… The Holy Cross And Jesus’ Unconditional Love

By FR. RICHARD D. BRETON Each year on September 14 the Church celebrates the Feast Day of the Exultation of the Holy Cross. The Feast Day of the Triumph of the Holy Cross commemorates the day St. Helen found the True Cross. It is fitting then, that today we should focus on the final moments of Jesus’ life on the…Continue Reading

Our Ways Must Become More Like God’s Ways

By FR. ROBERT ALTIER Twenty-Fifth Sunday In Ordinary Time (YR A) Readings: Isaiah 55:6-9Phil. 1:20c-24, 27aMatt. 20:1-16a In the first reading today, God tells us through the Prophet Isaiah that His thoughts are not our thoughts and His ways are not our ways. This should not come as a surprise to anyone, especially when we look at what the Lord…Continue Reading

The Devil And The Democrats

By FR. DENIS WILDE, OSA States such as Minnesota, California, Maryland, and others, in all cases with Democrat-controlled legislatures, are on a fast track to not only allow unborn babies to be murdered on demand as a woman’s “constitutional right” but also to allow infanticide.Our nation has gotten so used to the moral evil of killing in the womb that…Continue Reading

Crushed But Unbroken . . . The Martyrdom Of St. Margaret Clitherow

By RAY CAVANAUGH The late-1500s were a tough time for Catholics in England, where the Reformation was in full gear. A 1581 law prohibited Catholic religious ceremonies. And a 1584 Act of Parliament mandated that all Catholic priests leave the country or else face execution. Some chose to remain, however, so they could continue serving the faithful.Also taking huge risks…Continue Reading

Advertisement(2)