Two weeks ago, The Wanderer praised Virginia Bishops Michael F. Burbidge of Arlington and Barry C. Knestout of Richmond for their courageous call to arms to the faithful regarding the midterm elections this fall. They asked that their message be read at every Mass celebrated in Virginia on the weekend of Sept. 13.
“All of us in the Commonwealth of Virginia will soon face very serious legal threats to the sacredness of human life and the sanctity of marriage,” Bishop Burbidge wrote, after Virginia Democrats had succeeded in placing two proposed amendments to the constitution of the commonwealth, one legalizing abortion up to birth and the other allowing “marriage” to apply legally to just about anything, on the November ballot.
For the next six weeks, Virginians will fight the battle that our nation fought ever since Roe v. Wade was decided 53 years ago, and Bishop Burbidge knows that it’s a spiritual battle as well. He has asked the faithful of the Diocese of Arlington to pray the Stations of the Cross and to fast on Fridays until the election to sustain the sanctity of human life and marriage.
Our work is cut out for us.
The bishops’ brave clarion call — “Vote No!” — was joined by groups throughout the commonwealth, but clearly we have a mountain to climb. The money supporting the effort to “Vote Yes” has been massive, and it’s coming in from all over the country.
Funding has flowed from groups with a myriad of names: ACLU of Virginia, Planned Parenthood Advocates of Virginia, Equality Virginia, Birth in Color, Progress Virginia, Whole Woman’s Health, Virginia Reproductive Equity Alliance, Young Feminist Party of Virginia, A Woman’s Choice, National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice–Virginia, National Women’s Political Caucus–Virginia, and League of Women Voters–Virginia.
All these groups, some new, some desiccated husks in the pro-abortion trenches, are working to maximize turnout in a midterm election which in other years finds millions of voters simply staying at home.
Unfortunately, one of the groups, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists–Virginia, is the local chapter of ACOG, the national organization that has supported abortion on demand without legal or political interference for years.
A blot on the medical profession, to be sure, but good doctors are fighting back.
To oppose the Left’s enlistment of doctors in the abortion army, some 50 years ago a group of pro-life physicians formed the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Since then, AAPLOG “has championed life-affirming medicine that is ethical, evidence-based, and excellent. We don’t just support physicians, midwives, and pregnancy centers: we empower patients and families with clear, trustworthy medical information, so they can make confident healthcare decisions before, during, and after pregnancy that honor every human life.”
This year AAPLOG launched a coalition called Medical Professionals for Women’s Safety to raise the alarm. Virginians who want to defend human life, marriage, and the family can sign up on their website (https://aaplogaction.org), which serves as “action central” for supporters of life.
It’s going to be a tough fight in the Old Dominion, but it’s worth fighting. The Democrats’ Blue Bulldozer aims to destroy not only our constitutional rights, but the Constitution itself.
The Left Ups The Ante
When he made his Sept. 13 announcement, Bishop Burbidge added a vital observation: “Although many matters in political life call for strictly prudential personal judgments over which Catholics may in good faith disagree, certain fundamental matters such as marriage and the protection of human life call for a consistent and universal response from Catholics to protect and preserve objective goods by which God blesses humanity,” he said.
“Prudential” vs. “Magisterial” — we are reminded once again of the fundamental distinction that the Catholic Left has done its best to eviscerate for over 50 years.
After the sexual revolution in the 1960s, many among the Catholic elites banded together publicly and forcefully to denounce the message of Humanae Vitae, the encyclical of Pope St. Paul VI, promulgated on July 25, 1968. The “Spirit of Vatican II” had taken its evil root among the long-festering Modernists of that era, and Humanae Vitae supplied the “spark” for the social justice revolution to eradicate the timeless truth of the faith.
We recall that Vladimir Lenin laid the intellectual groundwork for his own revolution in 1900 when he founded Iskra (“The Spark”), the magazine that served as the underground organ for Russia’s new Social Democratic Labour Party. It didn’t succeed right away: the party’s rupture into Bolsheviks and Mensheviks at the party’s Second Congress in 1903 prompted Lenin to write “One Step Forward, Two Steps Back” in 1904 to celebrate the party’s victory while bemoaning its divisions.
Then Lenin’s effort to overthrow the Tsar failed in 1905. Curiously, the man who led the mass demonstrations that began the fighting on Bloody Sunday was Fr. Georgy Gapon, a Russian Orthodox priest.
Losses in 1903 and 1905 — “two steps back” — but never give up. After his victory in the Revolution of 1917, Lenin referred to 1905 as a “rehearsal.”
The lesson: If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.
Today’s leftists might never have heard of Lenin, but their attempt to use the Second Vatican Council as a pretext for their makeover of the Catholic Church echoes Lenin’s own game plan.
The theoretical groundwork has been laid: The revolution must not announce the destruction of Holy Mother Church but its perfection. The sacred symbols and sacraments must not be targeted as such, but seized and modified to deliver a more progressive, inclusive, and appealing Gospel message. Strict rules, nostalgia, and rigid attachment to Tradition and magisterial truths like those pesky logical “distinctions” must be gently set aside, placed in the bottom drawer, and later quietly dropped down the Memory Hole.
They Just Keep On Keepin’ On
Face it — the Catholic Left won’t quit. When brave bishops speak out boldly in defense of the Truths of the Faith — in capital letters because they are eternal truths — Satan rages.
Just three days after Bishops Knestout and Burbidge announced their campaign to defeat the Virginia Blues’ “Culture of Death Amendments,” an outfit we call “The Distorter” that has heretically brandished the “Catholic” brand for decades published an interview with Bishop Daniel E. Flores of Brownsville, Texas.
Bishop Flores is vice chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). That he even agreed to speak on the record with this pro-homosexual, pro-women’s-ordination outfit stuns the sober Catholic mind. But “all are welcome,” and hey, Pope Leo welcomes Fr. James J. Martin, S.J., gaily, so there’s that.
While the date of the interview wasn’t posted, the article appeared three days after the Virginia bishops announced their pro-life campaign.
“Rather than rev up the political polarization gripping the United States, the country’s Catholic bishops should act to turn down the temperature of political discourse ahead of the coming midterm elections, said the vice president of the U.S. bishops’ conference,” the account read.
Except that Bishop Flores didn’t say that.
In fact, Bishop Flores didn’t mention the midterms at all. The Distorter did attempt to steer the bishop into a criticism of Vice President JD Vance and Bishop Robert E. Barron of Rochester-Winona, Minn., but that didn’t work either.
“I don’t think we need to be so quick to presume a bad motive or a desire to undermine. I don’t think we should be so quick to do that, and if you don’t agree with what one bishop or another bishop says about this or that, that’s perfectly alright,” Bishop Flores said.
Perhaps Bishop Flores has, as the saying goes, “grown.” In July 2016, when Donald J. Trump was running for president, the bishop attempted to make abortion and deportation of illegal aliens equivalently “morally flawed.”
He didn’t distinguish between the magisterial and the prudential then. But now he’s the heir apparent to the presidency of the USCCB when it selects its new president in 2028. Is he being more prudential this time around?
