September 3, 2015, Thursday — Prison
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Normally, I don;t post these long letters but this one 'hits the nail on the head' and is prophetic in showing us what lies ahead for devout Christians.
Deacon John
Prison
“If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so.” —Widely attributed to Thomas Jefferson (some say this quotation is apocryphal)
“If
the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to
be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.”—Henry David Thoreau, whose treatment of civil disobedience in the face of unjust laws influenced Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Innocent Prisoner
An innocent woman is in prison tonight in Kentucky. Her name is Kim Davis.
She is in prison because one of the laws of her country, the United States of America, is unjust.
She has, rightly, refused to obey that law.
According
to that unjust law, she must abandon her own deeply held belief and
accept the justice of the law, or be arrested and jailed.
She has chosen to accept arrest and jail rather than abandon her belief. (Here is a link to a detailed story about the case by the New York Times.)
So begins a confrontation that was inevitable, a conflict between judicial tyranny and individual courage.
And
it is a story that could be of interest to Pope Francis, who has said
all children deserve and have an inalienable right to a father and a
mother.
Indeed,
a Church source advises that Francis may soon decide to delegate a
personal representative to visit Kim on his behalf...
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This case is the result of a wrong and unjust law passed on June 26 by the US Supreme Court when it ruled to permit homosexual "marriage" throughout the US. (Note:
The ruling passed in a close 5-4 vote; but two of the 5 approving
Justices should have recused themselves, because they had already
presided over homosexual "marriages" and so had prejudged the case
before hearing arguments; this means the vote was not only very close
but actually illegitimate from the outset).
Kim is the first of many US citizens unwilling to abandon their principles before such an unjust law.
The
consequence today? One of the saddest -- and most shocking -- things
ever to happen in modern America: an ordinary American citizen has been
dragged off to prison simply for refusing to violate her Christian
beliefs on marriage.
Kim Davis, 49 (photo), a clerk in Rowan County, Kentucky, is an Apostolic Christian.
She
was sent to jail for contempt by federal judge David L. Bunning after
she stood by her refusal to issue marriage licenses to homosexual
couples seeking them under the tainted June 26
US Supreme Court decision which imposed homosexual "marriage" on all 50
states -- including states whose people and legislatures had voted to
prohibit it.
Davis said she had “no choice” because issuing the licenses would have conflicted with her religious beliefs.
Though
lawyers for the homosexual couples had asked the judge to fine Ms.
Davis rather than send her to jail, the judge imposed jail time anyway,
saying he thought a fine would be insufficient to force her compliance.
A Form of Tyranny
So this is what it has come to: the US government is applying force to induce a person to do what she knows is wrong.
This is clearly a form of tyranny.
An unprecedented new type of dictatorship has begun to take power in America.
The
Christian opposition to homosexual "marriage" has become, in the eyes
of this regime, pernicious -- something to be severely punished.
And so Pope Francis, who arrives in the US on September 22,
in less than three weeks, will touch ground that day in a land whose
public officials are increasingly hostile to everything he has had to
say about marriage and the family since the start of his pontificate.
And now this hostility, long gloved, is showing its fist.
The Pope's Position
The
Pope has in recent months -- echoing positions he has taken for many
years -- given unswerving support to the family composed of a father,
mother and children.
One of the most compelling points he makes, repeatedly, is that children have a right to both a mother and father.
“It
is necessary to insist on the fundamental pillars that govern a nation:
its intangible assets," Francis said on November 17, 2014 in a talk in
Rome. "The family is the foundation of co-existence and a guarantee
against social fragmentation. Children have a right to grow up in a family with a father and a mother capable of creating a suitable environment for the child’s growth and emotional development.” (link) (Note: The full text of the talk is below.)
As
cardinal archbishop of Buenos Aires, before his election as Pope in
March of 2013, Jorge Bergoglio took pains to condemn homosexual marriage
as the work of the “Father of Lies” seeking to “destroy God’s plan,”
warning that in jeopardy are “the lives of many children who will be
discriminated against in advance, and deprived of their human
development given by a father and mother and willed by God.”
Indeed,
children raised by homosexual couples are by definition “motherless” or
“fatherless,” from their most tender years -- “discriminated against in
advance,” as the Pope has said -- a situation universally found
pitiable by sympathetic people, and now institutionalized.
It
is another injustice harming the weak and defenseless in a society
which is well practiced in exploiting -- even killing -- the weak and
defenseless for its own interests, as the recent revelations about
Planned Parenthood have made crystal clear.
It
is important to note that in this matter even some self-described
homosexuals have said they oppose homosexual "marriage" because they
agree with Pope Francis that all children deserve and have a right to a father and a mother.
Paddy Manning, a Irish Catholic man who identifies himself as a homosexual, is a well-known blogger who was vocal in his opposition to approving gay marriage
in Ireland this spring. Manning pointed out that “marriage is, at its
heart, about children, and providing those children with their
biological parents.” (link)
Another well-known blogger in Ireland, a self-described "gay agnostic" named Keith Mills, agrees that "everyone knows marriage is
almost always about children." He says that homosexual marriage will
necessitate the prevalence of surrogacy in order for homosexual
“spouses” to acquire children. Surrogacy, he says, “turns children into
commodities, putting adult desires above the rights of children, having
babies made to order and wombs for rent.”
Even
some adult children raised by homosexual parents -- parents who by all
accounts provided safe, loving homes -- have come out against homosexual
"marriage" on the basis of their own personal experience of having been
intentionally deprived of a mother or a father, and the pain that has
resulted.
Robert
Oscar Lopez, who is married and a father -- and believes marriage is a
lifelong commitment -- was raised by his mother and her female
“partner.”
Now
in his forties, he details at length the ways in which his life has
been handicapped by having been deprived of a father while growing up.
(see lifesitenews.com/news/growing-
So,
it is not just the tenets of Christianity that contradict the notion of
homosexual "marriage"; it is the experience of many individuals.
In
nations like the US and Ireland, unless these recent laws approving
homosexual "marriage" are reversed, many children will inevitably
experience the injustice of denying this logic. As Vatican Secretary of
State Pietro Parolin said of the Irish vote in May, “I think you cannot
just talk of a defeat for Christian principles; it is a defeat for
humanity.”
For
this reason, a number of Catholic bishops have urged civil
disobedience. For example, Louisiana bishop Michael Jarrell stated in a
letter to his flock following the Supreme Court’s decision on homosexual
"marriage": “Let me state very plainly that no human court has the
authority to change what God has written into the law of creation. This
ruling is irreconcilable with the nature and definition of marriage as
established by Divine Law.”
“I
realize that this ruling will create conscience problems for many
Catholics, especially those in public office,” Bishop Jarrell went on.
“In some cases civil disobedience may be a proper response.”
As
in most things, the redoubtable St. Thomas Aquinas can be relied on to
shed light on this uncomfortable, but essential, issue: Are we justified
in defying our lawfully constituted government when it asks us to
cooperate in what is evil?
Thomas says in De Libero Arbitrio i, 5, in his Summa Theologiae:
"That which is not just seems to be no law at all." He continues:
"Wherefore the force of a law depends on the extent of its justice. Now
in human affairs a thing is said to be just, from being right, according
to the rule of reason. But the first rule of reason is the law of
nature, as is clear from what has been stated above. Consequently every
human law has just so much of the nature of law, as it is derived from
the law of nature. But if in any point it deflects from the law of
nature, it is no longer a law but a perversion of law...”
Kim Davis has defied the unjust law of a tyrannical government in the name of all that is good and holy.
May
God grant us the wisdom and courage to join her, if we are so called,
in saying "no" to the encroaching Culture of Death, in all its forms,
even at the expense of our comfort, our convenience, our freedom... our
very lives.
Note: For those who would like to travel with us on pilgrimage:
Note: For those who would like to travel with us on pilgrimage:
We have several pilgrimages schedule in the coming year. For the complete schedule, click here.
On December 8, 2015, and again on November 20, 2016,
we will be in Rome when Pope Francis opens the Holy Door to begin the
Special Jubilee of Mercy, and when he closes the door to end the Jubilee
Year. If you would like to join us, email now for more information...
We also often travel to Norcia, in central Italy, where there is a flourishing Benedictine monastery we visit.
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What is the glory of God?
"The glory of God is man alive; but the life of man is the vision of God." —St. Irenaeus of Lyons, in the territory of France, in his great work Against All Heresies, written c. 180 A.D.
