Change On Supreme Court . . . Latest Twist In A Traumatic Year Means Satan’s Power To Be Shackled?

By DEXTER DUGGAN

Could the astounding confluence of evils in the United States in 2020 mean Satan is thrashing about in desperation because he knows his current power is about to be shackled, and a new age of blessings from Heaven is ready to arrive on Earth?
True, that idea is unverified hopeful speculation, but a person also keeps in mind that God through the passage of particular decades eventually wearies of evils of that era inflicting themselves on His children and clamps down on devilish ills.
Over the last half-century, one of the dominant powers imposing arbitrary, sinful rule on the U.S. has been an unaccountable Supreme Court thrusting its personal agenda on society, lacking legal precedent as well as some other justification.
A major partner in advancing these ills has been cheerleading dominant left-wing media.
To look at Americans in a photo from, say, 1960 is to be reminded that they lived under a system far removed from our twisted one — although certainly no human generation is perfect.
The court’s amazing invention of national permissive abortion overnight in 1973 is the strongest example but hardly the only one at a time of various disorders being declared constitutional rights. Truly, a person today couldn’t be a good Catholic and a constitutionally “correct” American at the same time.
By this definition, to be a good Christian — or merely a good American of any persuasion — would mean having to laud and live in a state of constant mortal sin.
Was that the reason defiant liberal Democrats like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and presidential nominee Joe Biden declared themselves to be good Catholics while defending and advancing the worst of the court’s evils? They were the sort of good “constitutional” Catholics who helped pave the way for victims to the gates of Hell with deceit and deviance.
Already afflicted in 2020 with a pandemic generated in Communist China and the accompanying social and economic tribulations, as well as nationwide Marxist-inspired rioting, looting, arson and assaults — not to mention the dangers of a clearly unhealthy Democratic presidential nominee and his openly anti-Catholic running mate — the U.S. suddenly faced a high court justice’s dying in September.
Conservatives and traditionalists long had hoped for a rejuvenation and transformation of the ideologically impaired Supreme Court when a vacancy occurred. The impending replacement of elderly hard-left, pro-abortion extremist Ruth Bader Ginsburg with a conservative justice faithful to a rule of sound law, not a “law” of made-up left-wing imperatives, raised trembling hopes.
Republican President Trump announced that he’d reveal his choice of a woman to succeed Ginsburg on September 26, Saturday, two days after this hard copy issue of The Wanderer went to press. He was expected to select a conservative pro-lifer such as Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Amy Coney Barrett or Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Barbara Lagoa.
With Trump already having put two justices on the court, it stood at a putative 5-4 conservative majority, although “conservative” Chief Justice John Roberts, appointed by President George W. Bush, was a weak reed. And Trump’s 2017 nominee Neil Gorsuch showed earlier this year that he, along with Roberts, could be bent to endorse unconstitutional transgender notions.
Last March Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.) stood outside the Supreme Court building and ranted to a crowd about the danger posed to permissive abortion by, he said, Gorsuch and Trump appointee Brett Kavanaugh. Although Gorsuch didn’t capitulate in a June ruling on a Louisiana abortion law, weak reed Roberts did, showing that threats in some instances can succeed.
Former ACLU lawyer Ginsburg went onto the court back in 1993 thanks to pro-abortionist Democrat President Bill Clinton. She served that agenda well, furthering the slaughter of countless defenseless pre-born babies.
To see videos of some women alarmingly distraught by the cancer death of the frail 87-year-old jurist suggested that one of the main lines of defense they had used in their own thinking to favor massive cruel abortion was that they could cite the high-court authority of whom they admiringly christened “the notorious RBG.”
Alas, she was as mortal as the rest of us, and her authority came to an end laid in the same flower-covered box awaiting those yet alive.
Pro-life activist Gianna Jessen, who survived being aborted by saline in southern California in 1977, tweeted: “She does deserve honor and respect because she was made in the image of God. Her stand on taking the lives of the unborn does not deserve my respect. But yes, as a human being, she deserves the respect she did not afford to others.”
As for the necessity to keep reaching out to the lost, pro-life activist Jill Stanek tweeted a quotation from the late English evangelist C.T. Studd: “Some wish to stay within the sound of church or chapel bell. I’d rather run a rescue shop within a yard of Hell.”
Although the tributes to Ginsburg from the establishment were as generous as one might expect, they skipped past one of the most revealing points in her thinking, voiced to the high-profile New York Times Magazine in 2009.
Before she joined the court, it had decided in 1980 that abortion needn’t be funded by Medicaid. In 2009 Ginsburg told Times interviewer Emily Bazelon: “The ruling surprised me. Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided (in 1973), there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of. So that Roe was going to be then set up for Medicaid funding for abortion.”
“Populations that we don’t want to have too many of.” If they used Medicaid, they’d be poorer people. And who is the “we” that decided how many “we” want to live? Ginsburg’s future high-court colleagues with final word on the law?
Rather than explore Ginsburg’s frightening implications at the time, interviewer Bazelon waited three entire years before circling back with her in an article posted at the Slate website on October 19, 2012, where together they merrily laughed off the very idea of eugenicist scandal. They had to think long and hard so they could get their excuses together.
Probably like many other religious people, I was sad at Ginsburg’s death because of the judgment that may have come to pass on obstinate her immediately thereafter. But invincible ignorance is as real on one hand as Hell is on the other.
Some people really seem blind to the evils of massive abortion and other mortal sins, so it’s up to God to probe their consciences when they come before him in the everlasting realm where He, not The New York Times, prevails. I wouldn’t want to face Him if the best defense I could present was a sheaf of decomposable Times editorials praising my disordered conscience. But perhaps Ruth’s view was invincibly impaired.
Conservative Republican political consultant Constantin Querard told The Wanderer on September 22 that Ginsburg’s death could mean big changes on the court.
“Ginsburg’s passing is a likely inflection point in the history of America, and its importance should not be minimized,” Querard said. “It is why Democrats will work so hard to stop it and why Republicans as ideologically unreliable as (U.S. Sen.) Mitt Romney will actually stand tall and do their duty.
“The last several decades have witnessed a steady erosion of respect for our nation’s foundational values and institutions,” he said. “A 6-3 conservative court that could hold for the next decade or longer will have the chance to restore and defend fundamental liberties in a way that is priceless for all Americans, even those who don’t and won’t ever appreciate it.”
Earlier in his statement, Querard said: “Ginsburg lived a remarkable life that, had she held conservative views, would have been celebrated by those of us on the right and vilified by those on the left. I’m inclined to allow the celebration without practicing the intolerance the left showed after (Justice Antonin) Scalia’s death.
“It is fair to opine that Ginsburg’s disdain for critical parts of the Constitution should disqualify her from any standing as a great jurist, as her opinions often violated the very document she was sworn to uphold and defend,” he said. “And her enthusiastic defense of the wholesale slaughter of innocent babies is a case she is likely now defending before the highest court in any land.”
Meanwhile, left-wing Democrats and their allies elsewhere in society threatened all manner of destruction and mayhem if Trump and his Republicans went ahead to fill Ginsburg’s seat before the November 3 elections — even though a full court of nine justices could be needed to deal with legal challenges arising from the expected contentious balloting.
Socially dominant leftists weren’t pleased to see their ability possibly slipping away to impose their immoralities on the nation through the high court. They spoke gravely of the need to follow proper procedures.
However, conservatives pointed out that for decades Democrats blatantly violated one norm after another to get their way with that court. And now wild-eyed Dems suggested everything from putting additional justices onto the court — what’s called “packing” — to adding additional states to the Union to maintain their power.
Trump could be impeached yet again, or GOP Atty. Gen. William Barr could be impeached, or, Pelosi said, there were other arrows in the quiver. The message never seemed to get through to Pelosi’s elite that most Americans are thoroughly sick of the Dems’ maneuvers, as well as the violence the donkeys usually ignore.
The U.S. edition of the London-based Sun newspaper posted on September 20: “As fury raged in Washington, high-profile leftists hinted at violent insurrection in posts on social media. Trump-bashing former CNN presenter Reza Aslan tweeted to his 293,000 followers: ‘If they even TRY to replace RBG, we burn the entire f***ing thing down’.”
Fox News quoted conservative, pro-life U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) that Democrats are “the same party that looks away while rioters and looters burn down our towns. Now, the Democrats are saying they’ll burn down the Constitution. These people should not be in power.”
Indeed, one might wonder how hordes of experienced street fighters suddenly sprang up across the U.S. this summer, in well-coordinated, well-armed attacks. In, coincidentally, the very election year that Communist China spread its virus internationally. Dominant left-wing media, who viewed these thugs as their allies, didn’t seem too worried about answering the unavoidable questions.
The Washington Examiner posted on September 23 that Pelosi, joining an event with left-wing activist Sister Simone Campbell, bashed Trump supporters ahead of the president’s honored virtual appearance that morning at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast.
The Examiner quoted Pelosi, “ ‘What would Christ do?’ We always say that. Well, there’s a big difference between what Christ would do and what they’re honoring this morning.”
In her unique skin-crawling way, bad Catholic and radical pro-abortionist Pelosi often drags in poor Jesus to try to justify her raw politics. But in saying she “always” asks what Christ would do would be true only if Pelosi meant she wants to discover His will so that she can reject it, the more horrifyingly the better, as with massive abortion.
The Hill political news site posted that Trump told the Catholic breakfast, “Today I am announcing that I will be signing the Born Alive executive order to assure that all precious babies born alive, no matter their circumstances, receive the medical care that they deserve. This is our sacrosanct moral duty.”
The president also said his administration would increase federal funding for neonatal research.
On the other hand, bad Catholic Pelosi and her Democratic leadership had blocked a born-alive bill for helpless babies dozens of times in the House.
Back on February 28, The Washington Times posted, “For the 80th time, House Republicans sought to require doctors to provide medical care for newborns who survive botched abortions, and for the 80th time, House Democrats defeated the measure, days after Senate Democrats blocked a similar effort.”
While helpless babies are below Pelosi’s attention, there’s something else beneath her feet.
One viewer’s pungent reaction posted a YouTube video of Pelosi urging clean air and water noted the widespread human public defecation in Pelosi’s San Francisco home town. She can’t even keep the poop off the streets, said the comment.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, RIP

BY CHRISTOPHER MANION

The current uproar engulfing Washington, also known as “mourning the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg,” proves once more that abortion is the issue, period. After all, if you can kill the most innocent, you can kill anybody.
Those on the Left who are celebrating Mrs. Ginsberg’s “legacy” merely confirm the point: her “legacy” consisted solely of rubber-stamping Roe in the spirit of Margaret Sanger. “Frankly,” she told the New York Times in 2009, “I had thought that at the time that Roe was decided, there was a concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of.”
Well, we know what Mrs. Ginsberg’s wailing eulogists don’t want too many of: more Trump-appointed Supreme Court Justices.
To be sure, senior Democrats were already waging war on the Constitution long before Mrs. Ginsberg’s death. Hillary Clinton advocated abolishing the Electoral College. Rep. John Dingell, Jr., the longest-serving Member of Congress in history, wanted to abolish the Senate. Senate Democrat leader Chuck Schumer threatens to eliminate the filibuster and other rules governing Senate debate.
But all this hate speech cannot alter the looming threat of a population that pro-aborts “don’t want to have too many of”: five Supreme Court Justices willing to revisit Roe v. Wade.
At press time, we don’t know whom President Trump will nominate. The two “possibles” most often mentioned are both Catholic women. Democrats have already announced that anti-Catholic Sen. Kamala Harris, Joe Biden’s running mate, will lead the attack on the nominee when she testifies before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary. Battle lines have been drawn. Hate will abound.

A Calm Consideration Before The Storm

While we await the name of the nominee and the ensuing chaos, we entertain a fundamental question: When the Constitution was adopted, the Supreme Court wasn’t considered to be all that important. What has changed? Let’s look at the record.
George Washington appointed John Jay at the Court’s first Chief Justice in 1789. Jay resigned in 1795, when he was elected Governor of New York — a position which he considered to be more important. So important, in fact, that, when President John Adams offered to reappoint him as Chief Justice in 1800, he declined for reasons of health. However, in his letter to Adams, Jay explained further:
“I left the Bench perfectly convinced that under a System so defective, it would not obtain the Energy weight and Dignity which are essential to its affording due support to the national Government; nor acquire the public Confidence and Respect, which, as the last Resort of the Justice of the Nation, it should possess.” (Jay to Adams, January 2, 1801).
Thus things stood in 1801. What changed? Today, is New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo more important than Chief Justice John Roberts?
Well, Cuomo might think so. No one else would. But how did a nomination to the Court in 2020 become more important to many Americans than the presidential race itself?
The answer begins with the Court’s fourth Chief Justice, but it does not end there. When Jay declined the appointment in 1800, Adams appointed his Secretary of State, John Marshall of Virginia, as Chief Justice. In 1803, Marshall changed the course of history when he ruled, in Marbury v. Madison, that the Federal Courts had the authority to declare acts of Congress to be unconstitutional.
During his 1986 confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Judge Antonin Scalia said he wasn’t going to discuss any Court opinions, not even Marbury v. Madison. Everybody laughed. But they weren’t laughing in 1803. According to the Federal Judicial Center’s account, “Thomas Jefferson criticized Marshall for engaging in unnecessary editorialization, believing the case should have begun and ended with the conclusion that the Court did not have jurisdiction. Edward Corwin, one of the leading legal scholars of the first half of the twentieth century, went further, claiming the case bore ‘many of the earmarks of a deliberate partisan coup’.”
Pretty nasty stuff. But who can correct the Supreme Court when it trespasses beyond its enumerated powers?
The Congress, that’s who.

Marshall’s Legacy Triumphs

The Federalist Papers were published in 1788 to persuade New York state voters to approve the Constitution written in Philadelphia the year before (n.b.: the average New York voter reading these sophisticated treatises had a sixth-grade education).
In Federalist 78, Alexander Hamilton writes that the Federal Courts described in Article III of the Constitution are “the least dangerous branch” of the proposed government. “It may truly be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment,” he assures us.
Just in case, Article III, Section II empowers Congress to restrict or even forbid the jurisdiction of the Federal Courts “with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.”
Thomas Jefferson warned in 1798 that “In questions of powers, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.” When Marbury v. Madison was decided, the Congress could have followed Jefferson’s lead and passed legislation forbidding (in layman’s terms), “No More Marbury’s!” Had Congress perceived the “partisan coup” identified by Corwin, it could have exercised its Constitutional powers and impeached Chief Justice Marshall to drive their point home.
They didn’t. A century later, New York Gov. Charles Evans Hughes could write that, “We are under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what the judges say it is” — an audacious remark at the time. As Chief Justice a quarter-century later, Hughes presided over the Supreme Court as Ku Klux Klan alumnus Hugo Black and his radical colleague William O. Douglas dissolved Jefferson’s chains altogether, to the applause of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
The “Court Packing Plan” of Senate Democrat Leader Chuck Schumer relies on the precedent set by Roosevelt after his 1936 reelection victory. FDR acknowledged Gov. Hughes’s 1907 affirmation of the powers of the Court — after all, Hughes was now Chief Justice, and the Hughes court had declared several of FDR’s New Deal programs to be unconstitutional.
Instead of asking a friendly Congress to limit the Court’s jurisdiction, or demanding Hughes’s impeachment, Roosevelt threatened to expand the number of Justices on the Court from nine to fifteen. The Hughes Court “got the message,” according to the Social Security Administration’s history page, and responded by  upholding as constitutional the National Labor Relations Act and the Social Security Act.
By 1958, the radical Warren Court went so far as to solemnly declare for itself the power that Hughes had asserted half a century earlier. In Cooper v. Aaron, the Court blithely stowed the rights of states protected by the Tenth Amendment safely in cold storage.
Flexing its muscle-on-steroids, the Court then banned prayer in public schools (Engel v. Vitale, 1962), banned Bible reading in those schools (Abington School District v. Schempp, 1963), and overturned state laws nationwide that prohibited abortion (Roe v. Wade, 1973).
The die was cast. Today, who gets to use what bathroom is up to the Supreme Court.
“Impeach Earl Warren!” read the billboards on American roadsides for years. But impeachment wasn’t necessary. In all of the above cases, the Congress could have quickly responded simply by removing these areas of the law from the jurisdiction of the Federal Courts under Article III, Section 2.
But Congress didn’t. Nor did it impeach Earl Warren. It was much easier for a spineless pol to shrug and whine to an outraged public that “the Court has spoken.”
That’s where things stand today, and that’s why pro-abortion forces on Capitol Hill and around the country are apoplectic.
May Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s “legacy” rest in peace.

His Most Profound Words

By JOE SIXPACK

Jesus said many wonderful, amazing, and profound things during His three-year public ministry. He said things no one had ever said before…anytime, anywhere. We twenty-first century Christians take the profundity of His words for granted. After all, we grew up hearing them, and they certainly didn’t seem all that profound when we were kids.
Think about it, though. Jesus, this Jewish man roaming around Israel, told us that He is God. He told us He would give us His Body and Blood for the nourishment of our souls. This Jesus, who was from all appearances just another man, forgave sins. He told His apostles they could forgive our sins in His name. He told us we could do things greater than He if we acted with faith in Him.
But none of these things were among His most profound words.
He gave us the most profound statement of His ministry during His Sermon on the Mount, which covers almost a full three chapters in Matthew — chapters five, six, and seven. In Matt. 5:48 we find Jesus’ most profound statement: “You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
Think about that statement for a moment. It requires a lot of reflection. Break it down. He said we must be perfect. That’s not a suggestion or a mere goal to strive for. It’s a command! And He doesn’t merely tell us to be perfect. He places a stipulation on it. He tells us we must be perfect, but how perfect? As perfect as our Father in Heaven! Wow! How perfect is the Father? He’s infinitely perfect.
My first thought when I began to think about this command was: “Hey, let’s be reasonable here. How in the world can I become infinitely perfect?” Only a complete moron would believe he could become perfect at all, much less infinitely perfect. Don’t we all commonly say nobody’s perfect, and that there was only one perfect man in the world? I know I’ve been guilty of those statements. And I was ignorant, arrogant, and a little bit stupid for saying them.
Jesus never gave us any sort of command to obey that cannot be achieved. But how in the world can we obey His command to be as perfect as God the Father? Simply stated, we can’t…by our own power. We can obey this command, though, and Jesus has given and gives us all we need to become perfect.
Let’s begin by defining perfection. To be perfect is to be a saint. All of the saints were perfect, at least by the moment of their deaths. And they were infinitely perfect. Jesus told us in the Gospels that we would be like gods. Telling us that makes no sense at all…unless we consider His command for us to be perfect. To be perfect is to be like God. In other words, to be perfect is to be restored to our original state prior to the fall of man — original sin.
Prior to the fall of man we had special qualities as a consequence of man’s original perfection, and we’ll reacquire all these special qualities after the resurrection at the end of the world…provided we find ourselves saved. Those qualities are called impassibility, brightness, agility, and subtility.
Impassibility means that the resurrected body will never know pain nor inconvenience of any kind. Neither cold nor heat nor pain nor sickness will have any effect on the body whatsoever.
Brightness is that property of the glorified body that makes us shine like the sun — just as Jesus did in His Transfiguration.
Agility frees the body from all material burden. With agility the body can move more freely than anyone can imagine. You may be on one place and, by an act of your will alone, simply cease being in that one place and instantaneously find yourself wherever you will. Agility also covers what is called bilocation — the ability to be in more than one place at the same time.
Subtility is what St. Paul calls the spiritual body. Through subtility the glorified body will be completely under the control of the spirit and will be fully obedient to the soul.
Do any of these special qualities sound familiar to you? They should. Jesus demonstrated all of them Himself during His public ministry. “But He’s God,” you say. And you’re right. However, if you know anything about the lives of the saints, you’ll recognize that many of them demonstrated one or more of these same gifts during their lives…and so can you, if God sees a need while you’re striving for perfection.
Don’t strive for the gifts. That’s just plain wrong. None of the saints strove for these gifts. They strove for sanctity. They were rewarded with gifts by God when they needed them. They first became holy — perfect. And you don’t have to be a priest, nun, or monastic to achieve this perfection. There are hundreds of canonized saints who were among the laity, and thousands more who were never canonized.
But how does one become holy? Beginning on the road to perfection comes by humble acceptance of the graces God offers us. God offers us grace in two forms: actual and sanctifying. Actual grace is a divine enlightenment of our mind and strengthening of our will to help us choose what is right and avoid evil. Without actual grace it’s impossible for us to do anything that’s pleasing to God. We’re being bombarded by actual graces every moment of every day. The mere fact that you’re reading this is a sign that you’re accepting actual graces being offered to you to advance in knowledge of our faith.
Sanctifying grace, simply stated, is God’s life in us. It’s a supernatural quality infused into our soul at Baptism. Sanctifying grace gives us a share in the divine life and allows us to become a temple of the Holy Spirit, God’s friend, and an heir of Heaven. It also makes possible the ability for us to merit heavenly rewards for our good actions.
Sanctifying grace is absolutely necessary for our salvation, because it makes us pleasing to God, and only this type of grace makes it possible for us to attain Heaven. So when we say we’re in a state of grace it means we’re in a state of friendship with God; that is, we have sanctifying grace in our soul and are worthy of Heaven…usually after a period of purification in Purgatory — unless we’ve managed to obey Christ’s command to become perfect.
However, sanctifying grace can be lost, and we lose it with the commission of a mortal sin…every mortal sin, even if you don’t like what the Church says is sinful. The way we recover our state of grace — to again be filled with sanctifying grace — is by making a good Confession and receiving absolution from the priest in Confession.
Now here is where striving for perfection comes in. It’s not enough to merely be in a state of grace. We must increase the sanctifying grace in our soul at every opportunity. Each time we increase sanctifying grace in our soul we become closer to God, closer to perfection. Increasing sanctifying grace is done by performing good works for Jesus’ sake, prayer (not just formulated, but also heart-to-heart conversations with God), and devout reception of the sacraments — especially frequent Confession and the Holy Eucharist.
There is an alternative to striving to obey Jesus’ command for us to become perfect. That alternative, most unfortunately, is the route taken by most Catholics in the world today: being lukewarm. But being lukewarm is quite dangerous. Jesus said, “I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were cold or hot! So because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth” (Rev. 3:15-16).
Lukewarmness versus being on fire for Christ. Hmm. Let me think about that for a moment. Oops! No contest!
If you have a question or comment you can reach out to me through the “Ask Joe” page of JoeSixpackAnswers.com, or you can email me at Joe@CantankerousCatholic.com.
Hey, how would you like to see things like this article every week in your parish bulletin as an insert? You or your pastor can learn more about how to do that by emailing me at Joe@CantankerousCatholic.com.

September Pall… Firestorms Spring Up Both In Forests And Politics To Threaten Ways Of Life

By DEXTER DUGGAN

PHOENIX — As mid-September arrived, a pall covered the sky here from the mountains on the west — the direction where the overcast came from — to the mountains on the east. It wasn’t a congregation of individual clouds but unending gray above the peaks and deserts.
It looked like the “marine layer” that California coastal residents are familiar with, called the “May gray” or “June gloom.” Just drive east a bit from southern California’s Pacific Ocean beaches toward the desert and it dissipates.
However, this September aerial visitation was different and came all the way into Arizona. Phoenix is about a five-and-a-half-hour drive east of those beaches. This gray didn’t arise from a coastal temperature inversion but the raging West Coast wildfires. News reports said the smoke extended to the East Coast and beyond.
Something even more menacing than West Coast conflagrations was in the air, too, as summer waned. And the golden-flames state dominated by Democrat politicians was as good an incubator as any for left-wing totalitarianism.
Damaging as the wildfires were, their flames would die out, even though they recur each year. But forcing politics onto every aspect of life was the invasive toxin of totalitarianism, where the expression of even one wrong thought could … Continue Reading

The Christian Teacher In The Twenty-First Century… Why Morality And Education Are Bound Together

By PAUL KRAUSE

It is no secret that American education—and Western education, more broadly—is in the throes of a deep crisis.
This crisis is mostly self-inflicted and, to some extent, largely modern. Yet even in the 1960s and into the 1980s education still transmitted the treasury of culture and cultural consciousness to the next generation. Then began the nihilistic chants and iconoclasm at Stanford: “Hey hey, ho ho, Western Civ has got to go!”
Education, as all honest people know, is not a neutral endeavor. Nor should we strive for a supposedly neutral educational outlook. The role that education plays in cultural transmission ought to be celebrated and defended. And precisely because of the role education plays in cultural inheritance, education was assaulted to destroy that rich patrimony and replace it with the void of pragmatism, politics, and critical theory.
Morality and education are intimately bound together. Read any classic of American literature, even well into the 20th century, and you will see the residue of the civic and cultural spirit of education.
For instance, when Aron and Cal go to school after having moved to Salinas in “East of Eden,” Steinbeck describes … Continue Reading

Beacon Of Light… Examination Of Conscience: The Third Commandment

By FR. RICHARD D. BRETON JR.

(Editor’s Note: Fr. Richard D. Breton Jr. is a priest of the Diocese of Norwich, Conn. He is currently the parochial vicar of St. Andrew Parish in Colchester and St. Francis of Assisi Parish in Lebanon. He received his BA in religious studies and his MA in dogmatic theology from Holy Apostles College and Seminary in Cromwell, Conn.)

• + + Last week’s column revealed how we fail in living the Second Commandment. Today we will consider the Third Commandment which is: “Remember to keep holy the Sabbath day.” Jewish tradition refers to the Sabbath as from sunset on Friday evening to Sunset on Saturday. For Catholics, we observe the Sabbath as Sunday to recall the day of Jesus’ Resurrection. Sunday is also considered the day of rest, because, on the seventh day God rested after creating everything.
  For centuries Catholics have revered Sunday as special because it involved going to church and spending the day with family. Sadly, Sundays have become just another day. We see in society the breakdown of Sundays into an ordinary day, when Sunday is supposed to be dedicated to the Lord and our families.
  I remember the days of my childhood when Saturday night was the evening of preparation for Sunday morning. We would clean the house and prepare our clothes; our Sunday best for the Lord! On Sunday morning we would all go to Mass as a family to worship the Lord. Following Mass, we would return home for breakfast, or on rare occasions, go out for Sunday brunch.
  Today’s culture has influenced a lack of respect for the Lord’s Day. When we examine our participation in this lack of respect for the Lord’s Day, we can see how we have fallen in … Continue Reading

The Debates Are Coming

By DEACON MIKE MANNO, JD

Next week the presidential campaign — for good or evil — moves into the debate stage. As you know, there will be three televised debates between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden. They will start next Tuesday, September 29, followed by one October 15, and the third October 22. Between the first and the second there will be a vice-presidential debate on October 7 between current Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Kamala Harris.
Debates have been part of the political tapestry of America since the beginning of the Republic but debating by presidential candidates is of relatively recent origin. One of the reasons is that during earlier times presidential candidates did not campaign in the modern sense. Surrogates campaigned in their place. In fact, it wasn’t until 1932 that a presidential candidate — Franklin D. Roosevelt — actually appeared before his national convention to accept his nomination in person.
Prior to that time a special committee from the convention would formally notify the nominee who, in turn, would write a letter — for publication, of course — to the party accepting. So face-to-face debates were out.
But in 1858 Abraham Lincoln did meet Stephen Douglas for a series of seven debates, without a moderator, in which one candidate would open the debate with an hour address, the opponent would then respond with an hour and a half reply, followed by a half-hour response by the first. At each debate … Continue Reading

Dem Platform Backers . . . Deserve To Feel Plenty Guilty, But Let Innocent Make False Confessions

By DEXTER DUGGAN

Sellers that misrepresent their goods to gull buyers are an old — need we say biblical? — story. Who wants a basket of rotten apples fit for pigs when she expected them fresh for a pie? This is as old as Adam, Eve, and the apple-hawking serpent in the Garden.
The Marxist-inspired Black Lives Matter violence organization prefers that you focus on its merely hawking justice. However, even its somewhat-sanitized website is candid about its goal to “disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement” as being inferior to “extended families and ‘villages’ that collectively care for one another,” and to “foster a queer affirming network.”
“When we gather,” BLM’s What We Believe section continues, “we do so with the intention of freeing ourselves from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking, or rather, the belief that all in the world are heterosexual (unless s/he or they disclose otherwise).” BLM still insists, “Defund The Police.”
Being freed from “the tight grip” of traditional sexual understanding, in favor of a collectivity of caring? Sounds, not accidentally, like part of the days of the Bolshevik Revolution.
This is an agenda far beyond protecting people from being arbitrarily shot by police.
Like victims in Communist totalitarian states, innocent … Continue Reading

Confronting The Continuing Crisis

By CHRISTOPHER MANION

In Veritatis Splendor, his 1993 encyclical, St. John Paul II echoes St. Paul, calling us to “obedience to truth” and to “turn to God from idols” (1 Thess. 1:9).
The Latin title invokes “the brilliant, bright light of truth,” the Truth Who is Christ, the Light of the World.
St. John Paul doesn’t mince words. He forcefully defends “fundamental truths of Catholic doctrine which, in the present circumstances, risk being distorted or denied,” not only in the culture but “within the Christian community itself” (emphasis in the original).
“We are facing what is certainly a genuine crisis,” John Paul concludes.
This chilling charge was written almost thirty years ago. Has the “Christian community” recovered in the years since?
Unfortunately, the chaos has not only continued, it has intensified. Today it has reached the breaking point. For the first time in history, attendance at Holy Mass has been forbidden for months. Now, as churches slowly reopen, pastors wonder, how many will return?
Clearly the virus lockdowns wrought serious damage. Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam declared abortion to be “essential,” while Mass was deemed “nonessential.” He received precious little pushback, even from Church leaders.
Northam’s views were no secret. A pediatrician, he had already declared his … Continue Reading

A Bundle Of Roses

By JOE SIXPACK

Queen St. Elizabeth of Hungary (1207-1231) was one of the most benevolent monarchs in the history of the world. Not content with receiving numbers of the poor in her palace on a daily basis, and relieving the distress of all whom she could find, she built several hospitals, where she served the sick and dressed the most horrible sores and infections with her own hands.
Once she was carrying in the folds of her mantle some provisions for the poor when she met her husband returning from hunting with his friends. Amazed to see her struggling under such a heavy burden, he opened the mantle to see what she was carrying. He was even more amazed to find nothing in it but red and white roses, even though it wasn’t the season for any sort of flower. He took one of the miraculous roses and kept it the rest of his life…which was to be short lived.
Her charity to the poor was so great that people used to call her “Dear St. Elizabeth.” Her ladies in waiting tried to persuade her not to do many of the services to the poor and sick that she did, telling her it was beneath her royal dignity.
Elizabeth answered, “I’m preparing for the day of judgment. On that day Jesus … Continue Reading