Determined Not To Accept The Truth of Truth Himself, Christ the King, part five, the end

The crowd of the accusers of Jesus and their satellites had gathered round and on the steps of Pilate’s palace. Jesus stood bound at the summit of those steps, between the Roman guard, rejected by His people; what was to greet Him when the Gentle governor opened his door? He stood between two worlds, as did His apostles after Him; the old one was that day ending, the new one had already begun, but the door as yet was closed. The crowd below was not a large one. It was still very early in the morning, and though the city was already awake there was much to be done by everyone that day in preparation for the Pasch. The street in which the crowd had assembled was narrow, for a single arch spanned it; this gave the impression to one standing on the balcony of a much larger number than was actually there. There were the chief priests and ancients, with the men who had come up with them form the house of Caiphas, these were the main body, loud, clamorous and insistent, but it would seem, from the very nature of the case, that their actual number could not have been great. As they had proceeded through the city some few may have joined them, curious to see what was going forward, at so early an hour, and on such a day; but the elders expected no strong support from the ordinary people, whom they feared, and were anxious to avoid.

Pilate the Governor was within his hall waiting for them; as we have seen, he had been prepared for their coming. But the accusers disdained to enter into his palace; their Victim might enter, for He was already doomed, but for themselves in a cause of justice, they clamoured that Pilate who governed them must respect their religious scruples. And Pilate yielded, he committed his first act of weakness; from that moment the leaders were conscious that, whatever opposition the Roman Governor might make, they had but to persevere and in the end they would win. It was a clever beginning; on more than one occasion before, they had beaten Pilate in a contest concerning religious observance, and Pilate was unwilling to contend with them again on what was to him a trifle. But his first surrender was followed by a second. He looked at the Figure before him, silent and unmoved, yet stained with blood, splattered with spittle and filth, with bruises marked across His face, obviously already the object of gross mistreatment and abuse. Justice should have said that here was one who had been grievously treated before He had yet been condemned; before the charges were considered, something was needed to explain why these men had taken the law into their own hands.

But Pilate set this aside. When, at his appearance on the balcony, the howling of the mob had been silenced he turned to them and asked: ‘What accusation bring you against this man.’

He said nothing of the ‘Man’s’ condition; nothing by way of rebuke to those who had treated Him so roughly. His question, almost apologetic in its tone, gave the accusers courage. They could assume a defiant attitude; though he had spoken as one wished to through at least the forms of the law, they would let this weak Governor know that their Victim was already condemned, and that all that was needed was his consent to proceed with the execution. There was no need to formulate a charge when hatred is the accuser. They would demand justice and their rights; they would claim that all that all there present held Jesus to be guilty, and that was evidence enough; since Jesus had so many enemies, a whole sreetful of them calling for His death, it was the duty of Pilate to pass sentence according to the law of the land. ‘They answered and said to him if we were not a malefactor we would not have delivered him up thee.’

This, then, was the first charge these accusers of Jesus had to bring before the court of human justice. In their own court it had been quite otherwise. There He had been accused of threatening to destroy the Temple, and to build it up again in three days; He had been challenged to say in open court whether or not He was ‘The Christ the Son of the living God.’

Once in the Temple it had been openly acknowledged that He was no malefactor; that indeed it was His very good works that they had been completed to own. ‘Many good works I have showed you from my Father. For which of those works do you stone me?’ ‘The Jews answered him: For a good work we stone thee not but for blasphemy and because that thou being a man makest thyself God.’

Another time he had dared to convince Him of a single evil deed He had done, and they had been able to answer nothing. And now there is no charge; Jesus is to be condemned on an assumption, the common justice of the street. ‘If he were not a malefactor!’ Since the leaders of men gave Him this name, what remained for the rest but to believe that something in it must be true?

But Pilate was not so easily to be induced to yield; weak as he had already shown himself, he had also the subtlety of weakness. He had to defend himself from the charge of miscarriage of justice’ he had to defend the honour of the Roman court. Perhaps, too, there was another power coming to support him if he would accept it; the presence of the Man who stood before fettered and helpless at his side. But for the moment Pilate had no interest to consider this; at such a crisis the form of justice would suffice for him. These clamouring men before Him were obstinate and determined; they would stop at nothing to gain their end; and he was there to keep the peace. Whoever this Jesus was, already His presence was telling upon the Roman Governor. The leaders of these Jews were clearly inflamed with deadly hatred against Him; they were in no mood to consider right or wrong, justice or injustice, observance of law or its violation. He had but to let them have their way, and he would be freed from all responsibility; he had but to shut his eyes, and they would take the matter into their own hands. By what they had just said they had implied that they had tried and condemned the criminal who stood before him; in their eyes He was ‘a malefactor’, and the judgment of a malefactor came within the scope of their courts. He could leave it to them to finish the work they had begun. Thus would he save himself; his words would be non-committal; should this rabble go too far, and violate the law, then, if it were needed, he would be able to proceed against them and act as an upholder of justice should. ‘Pilate said to them Take him you and judge him according to your law.’

The leaders heard him, but were not satisfied. The subtle and experienced Roman was no match for the far more subtle and astute Asiatic. With all the implication this words conveyed, the acknowledgment of their rights, the willingness to accept their decision, they saw very well that they failed to cover all that they coveted. For the words omitted the death-sentence; above all the sentence to that death on which they had set their hearts. A less sophisticated mind might have assumed that they had implied it, and Pilate hoped that they would be so understood; but the expounders of the Law were too trained in word-splitting to be so easily deceived. They would let the Governor see that they would not content. Pilate had seemingly accepted without question their decision that this Man was a malefactor; they would make him accept their further decision upon the sentence they expected him to pass. For that sentence belonged to him alone. Jesus was a malefactor; so they had proved, or rather had assumed, and Pilate had asked for no further evidence. Jesus was a malefactor, and malefactors were not stoned to death; which alone was within the powers of their courts of justice. He was fit only for the gibbet, stoning to death was too for Him; this also they would declare, or rather would again assume and would see what this weak-kneed Roman would do: ‘The Jews therefore said to him: It is not lawful for us to put any man to death.’

As the evangelist S. John records this cry, it brings back to his mind the many occasions on which Jesus had foretold His death to His own. They had never understood what He had said; least of all had they understood the prophecy as to the way He would die. For if He were to perish at the hands of the Jews, who alone were His enemies, it would be by stoning; several times the attempt had been made and had failed. But death by crucifixion? That was the method of the Romans, and with the Romans Jesus had never any quarrel. Now S. John sees the meaning of the Jewish protest. Jesus must not die as a blasphemer; that might make Him a martyr, as many a prophet had been made. He must die as a malefactor, that His name might be stained for all time: ‘That the words of Jesus might be fulfilled signifying what death he would die.’

But the effect of the second demand was very different from that which the accusers of Jesus had anticipated. Weakness will yield to a point, but weakness driven to a corner will turn and retaliate. From this last cry Pilate saw that he must be drawn into the affair; the would-be shedders of blood would act only on his responsibility, with his consent, insisting on a kind which he alone had the power to inflict. At once, then, he began to harden. If he was to sanction the death of this Man he must be given reasons. The leaders of the Law saw the change, but they were ready; hatred and malice find arguments to justify any situation. In their own courts Jesus had been condemned because He had made Himself the Son of God; in the eyes of Pilate for the present at least, this would not for much. It would not prove Him a malefactor; it might only make Him for a harmless fool. That they might find acceptance by a Roman official the charges they preferred must be political. They must show that his malefactor was the enemy of the law and order, that He interfered with the Emperor’s authority. It was no difficult matter. Had there not been occasions when He had so stirred the people Him King? Had He not been known to question Rome’s right to impose tribute money? Had He not said that He and His disciples were free from the obligation of the taxes? Had He not said that He Had He not Himself spoken of His kingdom, of those who belong to it, of the conditions for admittance to it? Surely out of all this they could discover cause enough to it? Surely out of all this they could discover cause enough to make even Pilate suspicious. They were quick to seize the situation. One charge followed another; so long as the Governor was given reason for his sentence he would certainly pronounce it, if only to free himself from further trouble: ‘And they began to accuse him saying: We have found this man perverting our nation and forbidding to give tribute to Caesar and saying that he is Christ the King.’

These were surely charges serious enough to make any provincial governor pause. Perverting the nation, that is a sedition-monger? Before such a judge His enemies could scarcely have chosen their accusations more astutely. That none of them had been so much as thought of in the court of Annas and Caiphas mattered nothing; there they had condemned Jesus of Nazareth for reasons of their own here they were but seeking confirmation of their sentence, and any charge would suit their purpose. But by the first two Pilate was little moved. Like other Roman governors he had his own means of information; and he knew that his province well enough to vale such charges at their proper worth. If there had been danger of a rising anywhere, if there had been any refusal to pay taxes, he would long since have been informed. But the last charge more serious; at least it roused his curiosity. No one could have lived long in Palestine in those days, and have come to understand much of the Jewish mind, without learning the place this dream of kingship held in the hearts of the people. They sang continually the songs of David; they clung without shadow of doubt to the belief that one day would come a son of David who would set them free; though the very word kingdom had almost perished from the Roman reckoning, here it was always on men’s lips.

(b) The First Examination.

Recollections like these were roused in Pilate’s mind by the last accusation. This Man said He was Christ the King. He turned and looked at the Victim of hate who stood before him. He was a pitiable sight enough. If He had claimed to be the King of this people, He had already paid dearly for His false pretension; if He were a king He had certainly been dethroned. Still there might be something in what had been said. ‘Christ the King’; the words meant more than mere kingship, as he, though a Roman, could well guess. Moreover  there was something in the Man Himself as He stood there at the mercy of them all, that made the Governor pause. Mean and bespattered as He was, alone and apart from all the world, with now a hand to defend Him, not a sword on His side, still it was against Him that all this fury was raging, it was He had roused all this bitter hatred. Such a man could be no mere creature. There might then be something in the charge. Even in some sense which meant nothing to a Roman, which implied no danger to the Empire, this Man might be what they said He claimed to be. If He was, He would acknowledge it; if He did not, His denial would put Pilate at his ease, and would be ample reason to give Him freedom. Pilate would challenge Him to speak: ‘And Pilate asked him saying: Art thou the king of the Jews?’

The answer was not unexpected, and yet it was given with a firmness, a directness, which made Pilate hesitate. There was no word of self-defence, no circumlocution; no counter-accusation against those who had brought Him to this pass; no explanation, as yet, that the word had another sense from which Pilate had in mind. Jesus had been asked a simple, lawful question by one who had lawful authority to ask, and He gave the simplest reply: ‘And Jesus answered him and said: Thou sayest it. Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.’

We look back on the life of Jesus and notice but few occasions when He has come in contact with the ruling Romans; yet always there has been a deference, a friendliness. Which cannot be mistaken. The second miracle recorded at Cana, the cure of the official’s son, may well have been wrought on the son of a Roman. In Capharnaum, after the Sermon on the Mount, He had said that many would come after, form East and West, and would enter the Kingdom when the natural heirs would be cast out. He had been the friend of the tax-collectors, men disliked because of their service of Rome; one of them He had made a chosen disciple. When His enemies had come tempting Him about the tribute, He had taken in His hand a Roman coin, and had bidden men give to the Roman Emperor his due. They had tempted Him again, because of a slaughter by Roman arrows in the Temple court. But Jesus had not said word against the Jews themselves. In His parables He had spoken of princes and kings, of merchants and foreign powers; He had always spoken of princes and kings, of merchants and foreign powers; He had always spoken of them with respect. Only at the Supper that night had He warned His disciples, of the future princes of His own kingdom, that their standards were not be as were the standards of other rulers; but even then He spoke with no word of complaint or criticism.

Now, when we find Him before Pilate, from beginning to end His attitude is the same. He treats Pilate always with respect; He calls upon him no woe; He will warn him, but He will not blame him; in His manner throughout there is a considerate for Pilate which would have made one more sensitive to truth realize that he was dealing, not with a criminal on trial, but with a friend. Indeed one might think that Pilate himself realized it. What Roman governor, with a despicable Jew, a Jewish criminal, before him, would have condescended to such lengths as Pilate condescended in his conversation with Jesus that day? Yet as the hours of the morning dragged on, the Judge and he Criminal became only more intimate. At first Pilate had before him just a Jew for whom he cared nothing; at the end he passed sentence on One who had won not only his esteem but a place in his heart. But a little more courage, a little further response to the affection stirred within him and not Pilate and Herod, but Pilate and Jesus might have been intimate friends from that day. Such, even under this ordeal, was the heart of Jesus Christ. (Archbishop Alban Goodier, S.J., The Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, pp. 236-244.)

Pilates aplenty are to be found in the world today as men see what is expedient, exculpating themselves of any responsibility for the evil that others or circumstances “force” them to do. This is true in the counterfeit church of concilarism as priests/presbyters who know better go along with the lies of conciliarism, and it is true in the realm of the world, including in what passes for “pro-life politics” in this world that is determined not to accept the Social Reign of Christ the King as It must be exercised by His true Church, the Catholic Church, outside of which there is no salvation and without which there can be no true social order.

To wit, anyone thinks that the fratricidal warfare that has been going on in traditional Catholic circles for over forty years now is endemic only to those who reject the "Second" Vatican Council and the "magisterium" of the conciliar "popes" should have been involved in the pitched battles that some of us experienced in the pro-life movement starting in the 1970s and into the 1980s. Expediency has trumped a principled defense of truth time and time again as we are told to "settle" for crumbs and the illusions of victories that are no victories at all.

As a veteran of such battles, ladies and gentlemen, I was able to witness how long simmering feuds erupted into blazing assaults over the course of time. Although there were plenty of disputes over turf battles and personalities, to be sure, a great many of the disputes within the pro-life movement that I experienced personally revolved around the castigation by "incrementalists" of the absolutist (no exceptions, no compromise) approach to electoral politics and legislative policy taken by those of us who recognized that the so-called "lesser of two evils" always results in the triumph of a greater evil over the course of time. "Pro-life" incrementalists view absolutists as unreasonable and unrealistic dreamers who let the "perfect" become the "enemy of the good" over and over again.

Dr. Charles E. Rice, who died on January 25, 2015, at the age of eighty-two and was one of the foremost experts on the Natural Law in his distinguished career as a professor of law at the University of Notre Dame School of Law, wrote the following in the August 27, 1998, issue of The Wanderer as he attempted to explain the philosophical and practical flaws of the incremental approach to politics and legislation at a time that I was opposing then United States Senator Alfonse M. D'Amato's bid for re-nomination by the Right to Life Party of the State of New York:

Sen. D'Amato will face a pro-abortion Democratic opponent in the fall. While a voter could morally vote for a pro-abortion candidate who is less objectionable on abortion than his opponent, he should not. The tactic of voting for the less objectionable of two pro-abortion candidates is a tactic of incremental surrender. The incremental strategy of accepting the legalization of abortion in some cases concedes that some innocent human life is negotiable after all. The pro-death movement is a guaranteed winner against an opposition that qualifies its own position by conceding that there are some innocent human beings whom it will allow to be directly and intentionally killed. That approach in practice has mortgaged the pro-life effort to the interests and judgment of what Paul Johnson called "the great human scourge of the 20th century, the professional politician." (Modern Times, 1985, p. 510.)

When a politician says he favors legalized abortion in life of the mother, rape and incest, or other cases, he affirms the nonpersonhood of the unborn child by proposing that he be subjected to execution at the discretion of another. The politician's pro-life rhetoric will be drowned out by the loud and clear message of his position, that he concedes that the law can validly tolerate the intentional killing of innocent human beings. Apart from exceptions, of course, Sen. D'Amato is objectionable as well for some of his other stands on abortion and for his positions on other issues, including especially the homosexual issue.

Pro-lifers could increase their political impact if they were single-issue voters, treating abortion as an absolutely disqualifying issue. Any candidate who believes that the law should treat any innocent human beings as nonpersons by tolerating their execution is unworthy to hold any public office, whether President, trustee of a mosquito abatement district, or senator. (Dr. Charles E. Rice, "Pro-Life Reflections on Sen. D'Amato, The Wanderer, August 27, 1998.)

Longtime readers of my work, whether in The Wanderer, The Remnant, Catholic Family News, Celebrate Life, The Latin Mass: A Journal of Catholic Culture, The Arlington Catholic Herald, the printed pages of Christ or Chaos and on this website that has been live since February 20, 2004, know that I have been completely consistent in my rejection of the "lesser of two evils" slogan as serving only one end: the incremental institutionalization of more and more evils.

Although some who have written on the "lesser evil" as being the morally principled and "good" position to take by citing Saint Thomas Aquinas's teaching on the subject, it is nevertheless true that a decision to accept a "lesser evil" time and time again accustoms those trapped in the farce of naturalism to accept increasingly higher doses of evil as morally necessary tolerate in order to avoid being overtaken by the supposedly "greater evil." Pope Leo XIII explained were this logic takes a state over the course of time

Yet, with the discernment of a true mother, the Church weighs the great burden of human weakness, and well knows the course down which the minds and actions of men are in this our age being borne. For this reason, while not conceding any right to anything save what is true and honest, she does not forbid public authority to tolerate what is at variance with truth and justice, for the sake of avoiding some greater evil, or of obtaining or preserving some greater good. God Himself in His providence, though infinitely good and powerful, permits evil to exist in the world, partly that greater good may not be impeded, and partly that greater evil may not ensue. In the government of States it is not forbidden to imitate the Ruler of the world; and, as the authority of man is powerless to prevent every evil, it has (as St. Augustine says) to overlook and leave unpunished many things which are punished, and rightly, by Divine Providence. But if, in such circumstances, for the sake of the common good (and this is the only legitimate reason), human law may or even should tolerate evil, it may not and should not approve or desire evil for its own sake; for evil of itself, being a privation of good, is opposed to the common welfare which every legislator is bound to desire and defend to the best of his ability. In this, human law must endeavor to imitate God, who, as St. Thomas teaches, in allowing evil to exist in the world, "neither wills evil to be done, nor wills it not to be done, but wills only to permit it to be done; and this is good.'' This saying of the Angelic Doctor contains briefly the whole doctrine of the permission of evil.

But, to judge aright, we must acknowledge that, the more a State is driven to tolerate evil, the further is it from perfection; and that the tolerance of evil which is dictated by political prudence should be strictly confined to the limits which its justifying cause, the public welfare, requires. Wherefore, if such tolerance would be injurious to the public welfare, and entail greater evils on the State, it would not be lawful; for in such case the motive of good is wanting. And although in the extraordinary condition of these times the Church usually acquiesces in certain modern liberties, not because she prefers them in themselves, but because she judges it expedient to permit them, she would in happier times exercise her own liberty; and, by persuasion, exhortation, and entreaty would endeavor, as she is bound, to fulfill the duty assigned to her by God of providing for the eternal salvation of mankind. One thing, however, remains always true -- that the liberty which is claimed for all to do all things is not, as We have often said, of itself desirable, inasmuch as it is contrary to reason that error and truth should have equal rights.

And as to tolerance, it is surprising how far removed from the equity and prudence of the Church are those who profess what is called liberalism. For, in allowing that boundless license of which We have spoken, they exceed all limits, and end at last by making no apparent distinction between truth and error, honesty and dishonesty. And because the Church, the pillar and ground of truth, and the unerring teacher of morals, is forced utterly to reprobate and condemn tolerance of such an abandoned and criminal character, they calumniate her as being wanting in patience and gentleness, and thus fail to see that, in so doing, they impute to her as a fault what is in reality a matter for commendation. But, in spite of all this show of tolerance, it very often happens that, while they profess themselves ready to lavish liberty on all in the greatest profusion, they are utterly intolerant toward the Catholic Church, by refusing to allow her the liberty of being herself free. (Pope Leo XIII, Libertas Praestantissimum, June 20, 1888.)

Whether someone or something represents a "lesser" evil is a judgment of the practical order. Catholics in the United States of America have become so used to the mantra of "voting for the lesser of two evils" that they invoke this mantra without understanding the proper distinctions and qualifications that need to be made when arriving at a judgment of the practical order. This is how the pro-life statist fraud named George Walker Bush got elected President of the United States of America on November 7, 2000, and re-elected on November 3, 2004, even though Bush the Lesser was indignant in 1996 at the time he was Governor of the States of Texas as one his of proteges, the fully pro-abortion, Dolly Madison McKenna, who was in a runoff election against a Democrat, Ken Bentsen, the nephew of the late United States Senator and Secretary of the Treasury Lloyd Bentsen, faced active opposition from pro-life absolutist activists. The then Governor George Walker Bush was frothing at the mouth against the "unrealistic" pro-lifers.

Also joining in the fray was Governor George Walker Bush's father, former President George Herbert Walker Bush, who ran a pathetic re-election campaign against William Jefferson Blythe Clinton and Henry Ross Perot in 1992. Bush the Elder was enraged that Al Clements, the larger-than-life leader of pro-life forces in Texas whom I had the privilege of meeting in the 1990s when I spoke at Holy Rosary Church in Houston, Texas, urged Republicans to cast blank ballots rather than to vote for the egregious McKenna. The attitude of both Bush the Elder and his son, then Governor George Walker Bush, about the issue of abortion in public life was quite revealing, and it is one of the reasons I stood steadfast against Bush the Lesser in 2000 as he was a pro-life fraud and feckless warmonger from beginning to end:

Now that the elections are almost over and Republicans have a diminished majority in the United States House of Representatives, Texas Republicans have managed to create a fracas out of what sounds like a political no-brainer: would they like to send one more Republican to Congress?

If the Republican is Dolly Madison McKenna, who favors abortion rights and who made it into a runoff election by campaigning as the candidate of the ''sensible center,'' some conservative Republicans here say the answer is no.

''The last thing the Republican Party needs is this high-profile woman parading around Congress saying: 'Look! I won on a pro-choice platform,'' snapped Al Clements, who was chairman of the committee that wrote the state Republican Party's vigorously anti-abortion platform earlier this year.

Mr. Clements and several other anti-abortion Republicans are urging the party's voters to cast blank ballots on Tuesday when Ms. McKenna faces a freshman Democrat, Representative Ken Bentsen, for a redistricted seat in a special election that many analysts say had presented a golden opportunity for Republicans to swipe a seat from the Democrats.

For the Republicans, the intraparty feud over whether to support Ms. McKenna is a potential embarrassment that has dragged both Gov. George W. Bush and his father into the fray. Both men appeared at Ms. McKenna's side last week, urging all Republicans, whatever their feelings about abortion, to turn out for her.

''It's ridiculous, absolutely absurd,'' former President George Bush, now a Houston resident, said of the anti-abortion leaders' call for a boycott. ''You agree on 99 percent,'' he said of Ms. McKenna's conservative economic message. ''If that's not good enough, then too darn bad.''

More than just a local squabble that represents a footnote to the November elections, the battle over Ms. McKenna casts a spotlight on the something that has troubled the Republican Party for years and could continue to do so as the party fights to keep control of Congress in 1998 and win back the White House in 2000. Should it be a ''big tent,'' open to divergent views on social issues like abortion and gay rights, or should it solidify its conservative core by emphasizing unyielding positions on these issues? (Republican Opposition to Party's Candidate Could Elect Democrat.)

"Big" Al Clements knew that Catholics don't say it's "too darn bad" for the babies when they are asked to support careerists who believe that the innocent preborn may dispatched under cover of the civil law or that their execution is so socially "divisive" with "swing" voters that it is best to say nothing during an election and to do even less if one gets elected. We just have "to live" the the "reality" of our situation. Al, who I believe played minor league baseball for a time, was quoted in the Reading Eagle on December 11, 1996, "If you vote for the lesser of two evils, you're still voting for evil." Al was a stand-up Catholic. He called them as he saw them, and he did battle in the trenches of Texas Republican politics and lobbied the Texas State Legislature for a long time in behalf of the innocent preborn.

This is what I wrote at the time in the December, 1996, issue of the printed pages of Christ or Chaos (Volume 1, Issue 5, one of the few copies of the old journal that I have in my possession):

Too darn bad? With that one statement, uttered with about as much philosophical reflection as he possesses, former President George Bush has summarized what most establishment Republicans believe about the life issue. It's just "too darn bad" that pro-life Republicans do not like the act that the party is embracing  pro-aborts, and running them as candidates. The only thing that really matters to them is economic prosperity. Pro-lifers will just have to learn to shut up and accept whatever crumbs the plutocrats who run the Republican establishment decide to give them. After al, party unity and electoral viability are what really matter, not "ideological" crusades.

While there are a lot of good, strong pro-lifers like Al Clements at the grassroots level of Republican Party politics around the nation, the plain fact of the matter is that there are also a lot of George Bushes still calling the shots from the upper echelons. There are a lot of men and women, such as Bush, who who do not understand--nor want to be informed---why abortion is the single most important issue facing our nation at present. They do not want to discuss the daily dismemberment of four thousand little human beings in their mothers' wombs. They do not want to discuss the power that the pharmaceutical industry, which profits handsomely from the manufacture and sale of contraceptives, wields within the Republican Party (which goes a long way toward explaining why we have received only lip service from Republican administrations and many of its candidates in the past two decades). And they do not want to do anything that might even remotely disturb the consciences of those who believe in the slogans and catch-phrases that have been used to justify the American genocide that has been perpetrated upon the unborn, and which is now being visited upon the chronically and terminally ill, as well as the elderly.

George Herbert Walker Bush, Robert Joseph Dole, Jr., John Sidney McCain III and Willard Mitt Romney  lost their respective races against William Jefferson Blythe Clinton and Barack Hussein Obama/Barry Soetoro  not because they were "saddled" with   pro-life plank in the Republican Party's platform as many commentators and Republican professionals keep contending. They lost because they stood for nothing. They could articulate less than nothing. Having no understanding of the fact that justice is rooted in the Sovereignty of God over men and their nations, none of the aforementioned naturalists saw the importance of emphasizing an issue, abortion, that made them feel uncomfortable. Indeed, each tried to avoid the issue at every possible opportunity; each saw no problem in appointing pro-aborts to positions in the government or on their own staffs. It was just politics-as-usual for their careerists.

How much more evidence do we need before we come to understand that politics-as-usual has failed the cause of justice in this country? Pro-lifers are expected to be content with the fact that a very flawed bill that limited some late-term abortions got to the President's desk, overlooking the cruelty that takes place in each and every abortion at every stage of development in a mother's womb. We are expected to be happy that those who say they are pro-life get elected to Congress, although House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott have no intention of letting pro-life legislation get through the one hundred fifth Congress. So many good pro-life Americans just sit around, believing that the "next election" will be better for our cause. And when nothing happens after 1998, a lot will say that we have to until 2000.

It is my view that the national establishment of the Republican Party is so corrupted by careerism and the moneyed interests which support contraception and abortion, to say nothing of active homosexual behavior, that it is irredeemable. Strong words, yes. But what is it going to take to convince good people of the stark reality that has been hitting us in the head again and ain in the last two decades? Is it really worthy continuing to fight a battle in a political party that is committed institutionally first and foremost to its own perpetuation in power as an end in and of itself?

Bill Clinton's Presidency is not the worst thing that ever happened to this nation. Clinton is merely a symptom of the diseases of relativism positivism which are amok in our land. Moreover, it is plain for all pro-lifers to see how bad Clinton is--and to mobilize against his policies founded in one unbridled evil after another. And Clinton does us a favor, because he is so brazen about his support of evil under the guise of compassion, of identifying which Republicans are willing to denounce him publicly for this policies of his that contravene the binding precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law.

Far worse than Bill Clinton, I believe, is the situation we faced during the Bush Presidency, as well as in the Reagan Presidency: namely, the appearance of having a pro-life President, one who makes rhetorical promises but who does little to move the culture to direct policy in accord with his rhetoric. Such a situation leaders those pro-lifers whose Republican ties run deep into criticizing other pro-lifers who express impatience with the inaction of a Republican administration on the life issue. The survival of a particular President or of the Republican Party becomes more important than speaking out forcefully in behalf of the appointment of pro-life Cabinet officers and Federal judges--or working to fund fetal experimentation or FACE [the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act] or funding for Planned Parenthood. The net result of such a situation is to convince man like George Herbert Walker Bush and George Walker Bush that they can get away with shallow pro-life rhetoric, without having to to anything substantive on the issue, all the while counting on the blind support of pro-lifers at the polls.

What Al Clements has done in Texas is to throw down the gauntlet to the Bushes and the Bob Doles and Jack Kemps and William Bennetts and Pete Wilsons and William Welds and George Patakis and the Christine Todd Whitmans and the Alfonse D'Amatos and the Rudolph Giuilianis and the Haley Barbours within the Republican Party. As Al has said, "If you vote for the lesser of two evils, you're still voting for evil." And the Republican establishment wants to make sure that pro-lifers get nothing other than he "lesser of two evils" in as many election as they can get away with in the upcoming years. (Thomas A. Droleskey. "It's Too Darn Bad," Christ or Chaos, Volume 1, Issue 5, December, 1996.)  

While I came to understand since that time that the corrupt nature of the American electoral processes is simply the result of the false, anti-Incarnational, religiously indifferentist, naturalistic and semi-Pelagian principles at the root of the the nation's very founding, which itself occurred in the wake of the Protestant Revolution's overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King and the subsequent rise of triumph of one Judeo-Masonic naturalistic "philosophy" and ideology after another, the analysis about the consequences of enabling the "lesser of two evils" time and time again that I provided nineteen years ago is, I believe, as sound today as it was at the time.

President George Walker Bush Paved the Way For Complete Access to the "Plan B" Baby-Killing Pill

Although many pro-life Americans are understandably upset that the administration of President Barack Hussein Obama/Barry Soetoro and Vice President Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., has decided not to appeal a Federal judge's order to make the so-called "Plan B" abortifacient pill available for sale on an over-the-counter basis without any age restrictions whatsoever, it must be remembered that Y2K's "Lesser Evil," the man who gave us two needless, unjust, unconstitutional and immoral wars and profligate spending--in the name of "compassionate conservatism, you understand--on such social engineering boondoggles as "no child left behind" and the "Medicare prescription coverage" programs, made this result inevitable.

Let me refresh your memories a bit.

George Walker Bush's Food and Drug Administration not only did not reverse the Clinton Food and Drug and Administration to market RU-496, the French abortion pill, the human pesticide. The Bush administration fully funded the use of RU-486 in both domestic and international "family planning" programs. Moreover, George Walker Bush's Food and Drug Administration approved over-the-counter sales of the so-called "Plan B" "emergency contraceptive" that is, of course, an abortifacient:

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today announced approval of Plan B, a contraceptive drug, as an over-the-counter (OTC) option for women aged 18 and older. Plan B is often referred to as emergency contraception or the "morning after pill." It contains an ingredient used in prescription birth control pills--only in the case of Plan B, each pill contains a higher dose and the product has a different dosing regimen. Like other birth control pills, Plan B has been available to all women as a prescription drug. When used as directed, Plan B effectively and safely prevents pregnancy. Plan B will remain available as a prescription-only product for women age 17 and under.

Duramed, a subsidiary of Barr Pharmaceuticals, will make Plan B available with a rigorous labeling, packaging, education, distribution and monitoring program. In the CARE (Convenient Access, Responsible Education) program Duramed commits to:

• Provide consumers and healthcare professionals with labeling and education about the appropriate use of prescription and OTC Plan B, including an informational toll-free number for questions about Plan B;
• Ensure that distribution of Plan B will only be through licensed drug wholesalers, retail operations with pharmacy services, and clinics with licensed healthcare practitioners, and not through convenience stores or other retail outlets where it could be made available to younger women without a prescription;
• Packaging designed to hold both OTC and prescription Plan B. Plan B will be stocked by pharmacies behind the counter because it cannot be dispensed without a prescription or proof of age; and
• Monitor the effectiveness of the age restriction and the safe distribution of OTC Plan B to consumers 18 and above and prescription Plan B to women under 18.

Today's action concludes an extensive process that included obtaining expert advice from a joint meeting of two FDA advisory committees and providing an opportunity for public comment on issues regarding the scientific and policy questions associated with the application to switch Plan B to OTC use. Duramed's application raised novel issues regarding simultaneously marketing both prescription and non-prescription Plan B for emergency contraception, but for different populations, in a single package.

The agency remains committed to a careful and rigorous scientific process for resolving novel issues in order to fulfill its responsibility to protect the health of all Americans. (FDA Approves Over-the-Counter Access for Plan B for Women 18 and Over .)

Where was the outrage from Catholics when this decision was announced?

Where were the e-mails sent out in a frenzy to oppose this decision?

Where were the voices to denounce George Walker Bush for what he was, a consummate "pro-life" fraud from beginning to end?

Where?

Where?

Indeed, I have met Catholics, both in the clergy and laity alike, who, upon being informed of this fact, shrug their shoulders and say, "Gore or Kerry would have done worse. Obama is doing worse now " And this is supposed to exculpate one from not have denounced Bush at the time did did these terrible things? Reprehensible. Absolutely reprehensible. Obama/Soetoro and his former pro-abortion, pro-perversity Secretary of the United States Department of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, who remains a Catholic in "good standing" in the Archdiocese of Kansas City, Kansas, are simply doing now what would have been done in an Albert Arnold Gore, Jr., and Joseph Lieberman administration. All the "lesser of two evils" strategy has done is to simply allow various evils to become such an accepted fact of life in order to make it possible for other evils to be proposed and then codified in civil law.

Thus is how we have come to the point of unrestricted access to the over-the-counter sales of baby-killing pill that could wind up in the hands of girls who are, say, nine, ten or eleven years of age courtesy of Obama/Sotero's Department of Injustice three years ago now:

The Justice Department said it would stop fighting a court order requiring it to remove all age restrictions on the sale of Plan B One-Step without a prescription.

Obama had previously said he was uncomfortable with removing all age restrictions on the sale of the so-called "morning after pill." He said over a year ago that "as the father of two daughters," he supported his Health secretary's decision to block over-the-counter sales for younger teens. But a federal judge excoriated the administration's defense of age limits on the pill, calling it a nakedly political decision divorced from science. 

The administration's sudden reversal came after the Food and Drug Administration had sought to block the judge's order requiring it to make Plan B available without a prescription to women and girls of all ages.

But late Monday, the Justice Department said in a letter to the judge, Edward R. Korman, that it "is voluntarily withdrawing its appeal in this matter."

The administration's defense of age limits had angered women's health groups, who accused the White House of playing politics with a scientific question.

The Planned Parenthood Federation of America praised the administration's decision Monday.

“This is a huge breakthrough for access to birth control and a historic moment for women’s health and equity," Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards said in a statement. "The FDA’s decision will make emergency contraception available on store shelves, just like condoms, and women of all ages will be able to get it quickly in order to prevent unintended pregnancy."

The decision to stop defending age restrictions in the courts, though, will surely anger anti-abortion rights activists, who see Plan B as a form of abortion.

The Justice Department said Monday that the FDA only intended to remove age restrictions from Plan B One-Step — a one-pill version of the emergency contraceptive. A two-pill form will still carry age restrictions.

Last year, scientists at the FDA recommended making Plan B available without any age restrictions. They were overruled by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

Korman would later say Sebelius's intervention was "politically motivated and that, even without regard to the Secretary’s motives, was so unpersuasive as to call into question her good faith."

Obama, though, had defended Sebelius's actions, saying he was uncomfortable with young girls having easy access to the drug.

Korman ordered the FDA to remove all age restrictions on Plan B One-Step and has routinely hammered Sebelius's intervention as well as the FDA's appeals of his ruling. (Obama administration will approve Plan B pill for women and girls of all ages.) 

George Walker Bush's "Patriot Act" made it possible for Barack Hussein Obama/Barry Soetoro's quasi-police state surveillance of our communications and banking records. (More on this in tomorrow's commentary, God willing and Our Lady interceding.)

George Walker Bush's "no child left behind" made it more possible for Barack Hussein Obama/Barry Soetoro to propose a binding "common core" curriculum as a means of making sure that no one child will be left behind, so to speak, when it comes to glories of relativism, statism, feminism, evolutionism, globalism, "inclusiveness" and environmentalism (see Common Core: From Luther To Mann To Bismarck To Obama.)

George Walker Bush's "Troubled Assets Relief Program" made it possible for the monstrous bottomless pit that was and remains Barack Hussein Obama/Barry Soetoro's own "economic stimulus" package.

George Walker Bush's "Medicare prescription coverage program" made it more possible for Barack Hussein Obama/Barry Soetoro to attempt to nationalize the entire health care industry by means of his so-called Affordable Care and Patient Protection (ObamaCare) program that is only not "affordable" but make it more possible to kill off more and more "useless" people who suffer from various maladies that are deemed by a committed of naturalist gangsters too costly to treat.

George Walker Bush's anti-life recordmade the decision announced in 2012 by Attorney General Eric Holder's United States Department of Injustice not to appeal United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York Judge Edward Korman's decision to lift all age restriction on over-the-counter sales of the "Plan B" baby-killing potion absolutely inevitable.

Naturalism of the false opposite of the "right" is simply incapable of retarding the naturalism of the false opposite of the "left." Yes, I will repeat myself again: Catholicism is the one and only foundation of personal and social order. Nothing else.

The conciliar revolutionaries do not believe this. Indeed, many of them have been their own "compromises" with the "Plan B" baby-killing pill.

How can one express outrage at the hideous pro-abortion, pro-perversity administration of Barack Hussein Obama/Barry Soetoro for refusing to appeal Judge Korman's order or former New York City Mayor Michael Rubens Bloomberg's decision to distribute the so-called "Plan B" "emergency" abortifacient to children in the concentration camps known as the New York City Public School system when the conciliar "bishops" of Germany approved the use of this baby-killing pill by women who have been assaulted in 2012:

Roman Catholic-run hospitals can prescribe limited emergency contraception to rape victims, German bishops said Thursday as they sought to contain fallout from an embarrassing recent case in which two hospitals refused to treat a woman.

In a statement issued at the end of a regular meeting in the western city of Trier, the German Bishops Conference said Catholic hospitals still can't provide drugs that would lead to the death of an embryo.

The German church was under pressure to clarify its stance after two Catholic hospitals in Cologne turned away a rape victim because of concerns over the pill. Cologne's archbishop, Cardinal Joachim Meisner, said last month that the church was "deeply ashamed by this incident because it goes against our Christian mission."

At the end of January, Meisner said it was "justifiable" in such cases to provide drugs that prevent conception. He later said he had consulted with Pope Benedict XVI's secretary, Georg Gaenswein, and was told that "everything is all right."

For decades, Catholic hospitals have in cases of rape allowed the use of spermicidal wash to impede sperm from reaching an egg and drugs to prevent the victim from ovulating. The rationale is that rape is an act of violence against a woman; to prevent the attack from continuing, a hospital can use drugs to impede conception.

Church teaching, however, holds that life begins at conception, and thus forbids the use of drugs that would intercept, dislodge or abort a fertilized egg, according to the Rev. Robert Gahl, a moral theologian at Rome's Pontifical Holy Cross University.

"This new determination by the German bishops is in full continuity with church teaching, and specifies how best to implement new pharmaceutical technology," Gahl said.

Thursday's statement by the bishops stressed that rape victims "can of course receive human, medical, psychological and pastoral help in Catholic hospitals.

"That can include prescription of the `morning-after pill,' insofar as it has a preventive and not an abortive effect. Medical and pharmaceutical methods which result in the death of an embryo still may not be used."

It said the bishops "trust that practical treatment in Catholic-run facilities will take place on the basis of these moral and theological guidelines."

The statement did not specify any timeframe within which the morning-after pill can be prescribed. That pill contains a higher dose of the female progestin hormone than is in regular birth control pills. Taking it within 72 hours of unprotected intercourse can cut the chances of pregnancy by up to 89 percent. But it works best within the first 24 hours.

If a woman already is pregnant, the pill has no effect. It prevents ovulation or fertilization of an egg.

Meisner's diocese has said that approval for emergency contraception does not extend to RU-486, which terminates pregnancy by causing the embryo to detach from the uterine wall. (German bishops OK emergency contraception assault cases. For a refutation of the false claims made by the German conciliar "bishops," please see Crushed By The Weight Of Error, Part Two and Victim Of His Own Obliviousness.) 

Lest one protest to the effect that the case of the German conciliar "bishops" is an isolated one, permit me to remind you that the conciliar "bishops" of Wisconsin and Connecticut refused to oppose legislation approving the use of the "Plan B" baby-killing pill for use by women who have been victims of assault.

Who was the "Archbishop" of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, when the conciliar "bishops" of the Badger State decided not to oppose legislation in the Wisconsin State Legislature to approve the use of "Plan B" baby-killing pill in cases of assault?

You got it.

Timothy Michael Dolan.

Yes, the Wisconsin Conference of "Catholic" "Bishops" did not oppose legislation two years ago to require all hospitals, including Catholic hospitals, to distribute "emergency contraceptives," which are abortifacients, to women after violent assaults. Only two conciliar "bishops" in Wisconsin, Robert C. Morlino of Madison, Wisconsin,  and Jerome Listecki of La Crosse, Wisconsin, opposed the position taken by the Wisconsin Conference of "Catholic" "Bishops" (Wisconsin Bishop breaks from conference and opposes emergency contraceptives). Timothy Dolan did not issue any statement that contradicted the policy announced by the official lobbying arm of the conciliar "bishops" of Wisconsin: 

May 1, 2007 / 12:01 pm (CNA).- The Wisconsin Catholic Conference has decided not to oppose a bill that would require all hospitals, including Catholic health facilities, to distribute emergency contraceptives to female victims of rape.

A spokesperson for the conference said the group removed its objections to the bill after it was revised to allow hospitals to give women a pregnancy test before providing emergency contraception reported The Wisconsin Capital Times. The bill reportedly also includes the right to conscientious objection. 

Kim Wades of the Wisconsin Catholic Conference told the newspaper that many Catholic hospitals are already dispensing emergency contraception to rape victims.

Emergency contraception, most often referred to as Plan B or the morning after pill, is composed of a high dose of birth control pills that has shown to prevent pregnancy if taken within 72 hours of intercourse.

Sue Armacost of Wisconsin Right to Life said her group is not taking a stand on the bill, and that it is important to the group that the Catholic bishops were not opposing the bill, reported The Wisconsin Capital Times.

The only group lobbying against the bill is Pro-Life Wisconsin. Matt Sande, the group's director of legislation, said in a news release he opposed the bill because emergency contraception can work to prevent implantation of a fertilized egg in the uterus and he considers this "pre-implantation chemical abortion."

The bill is likely to pass the Democratic-controlled Senate and Gov. Jim Doyle would sign the bill if it makes it to his desk. (No opposition from Wisconsin Catholic Conference re emergency contraceptives.) 

Mrs. Judie Brown, the founder and President of American Life League, with which Pro-Life Wisconsin is affiliated, wrote the following analysis of this scandal, which had the implicit support, it appears, of the then conciliar "archbishop" of Milwaukee, Timothy M. Dolan, and all but one of the other bishops in Wisconsin, an analysis that focused also on a similar tack taken by the conciliar "bishops" in Connecticut:   

Recent reports from Connecticut and Wisconsin leave us wondering what in the world is going on in the world of "Catholic" health care. It would seem that the appropriate treatment for a victim of criminal rape has become a question of whether Catholic hospitals can be put in the position of doing the unthinkable. Reports from Connecticut were the first to come to our attention. The Connecticut state senate approved a bill that would require all hospitals — including the four Catholic hospitals in the state — to provide Plan B emergency contraceptive pills to rape victims.

What is most startling about this turn of events in Connecticut is that the state's Catholic bishops asserted their opposition to this law by advising the lawmakers that "Catholic hospitals provide emergency contraception to rape victims in the vast majority of cases. In fact, it is an extreme rarity when this medication would not be provided."

This statement is astounding. The Vatican's Pontifical Academy for Life condemns the morning-after pill and makes no exceptions for cases of rape treatment, whether or not conception/fertilization has occurred. The academy goes so far as to say that this pill represents a good example of the absolute unlawfulness of any drug that has the potential to be an abortive agent. The academy makes it perfectly clear that anyone who is an agent in the provision of this drug is morally responsible for the outcome. Apparently this warning has not been taken seriously by either the Connecticut or Wisconsin Catholic hierarchy.

As if this dilemma were not already confusing to most Catholics, in the aforementioned statement to lawmakers the Connecticut bishops also wrote, "This bill is a violation of the separation of Church and state. The Catholic bishops of Connecticut are responsible for establishing and determining what moral guidelines Catholic institutions should follow; not the Connecticut General Assembly." But subsequent to this statement, these bishops dropped their opposition to the bill.

A similar scenario is playing out in Wisconsin, but with an added twist. It seems that there were lawmakers in the state who strongly opposed the measure requiring every hospital in the state — including Catholic hospitals — to provide the morning-after pill to rape victims. But when the Wisconsin Catholic bishops dropped their opposition to the bill, the lawmakers followed suit.

The outcome is at this moment uncertain, but the entire question of providing rape victims with abortive pills is seriously problematic from the Catholic perspective. There is a serious challenge facing these bishops and Directive 36 of the "Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services" published by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is not helping. While the directives are designed to provide moral guidance in situations like this, Directive 36 (to which bishops in both states have referenced) is vague.

Directive 36 states: 

Compassionate and understanding care should be given to a person who is the victim of sexual assault. Health care providers should cooperate with law enforcement officials and offer the person psychological and spiritual support as well as accurate medical information. A female who has been raped should be able to defend herself against a potential conception from the sexual assault. If, after appropriate testing, there is no evidence that conception has occurred already, she may be treated with medications that would prevent ovulation, sperm capacitation, or fertilization. It is not permissible, however, to initiate or to recommend treatments that have as their purpose or direct effect the removal, destruction, or interference with the implantation of a fertilized ovum.

The two words in this directive that are playing havoc with the lives of preborn babies are "appropriate testing." Try as we might, and as many Catholic physicians have, we cannot identify a single test that provides one hundred percent assurance that a preborn child has not been conceived. One Catholic doctor, Chris Kahlenborn, pointed out in his analysis of the problem, "EC [emergency contraception] has the potential to abort a newly conceived child in the preovulatory, ovulatory and postovulatory phases. Because the potential for abortion exists, it cannot be ethically given to rape victims in any stage of the menstrual cycle" [emphasis added].

In other words, even though the directive suggests that there are tests in existence that provide the treating doctor with the evidence he needs to assure that the morning-after pill is not going to abort a human embryonic child, there is no test that can assure beyond doubt that a human embryo in fact is not already there. As I told members of Congress several years ago, Catholic hospitals have a serious problem in determining how to respond to sexual assault. It seems that any number of experts in the medical and ethical field are not clear about the means for determining whether or not fertilization might have occurred. And furthermore, they seem to be waffling about the clear evidence that indicates how the so-called "emergency contraceptive" interferes with the normal development of the new life. Thus, even though Directive 36 provides a caveat for potential use of Plan B, the actual facts of the matter would prevent its use.

The larger question in this current debate is why any Catholic facility would ever have a single type of contraceptive on hand in the first place. While it is clear that laws are being passed that require the use of this deadly drug, it is not at all clear why not a single Catholic hospital is willing to stand its ground, refuse to use what the Church teaches are unethical drugs and go to court if necessary to protect its right as a Catholic facility to be Catholic in every aspect of its health care. Separation of church and state is a bogus argument. The idea that a state can require any Catholic facility to do evil simply because the state says it must is outrageous. But if bishops are going to comply with whatever the state requires, then no distinct difference is going to exist between morally ethical Catholic health care and its secular counterpart.

A Catholic moral theologian, Msgr. William Smith, put this entire situation in the proper perspective when he wrote, "It's wrong to say you can use anything that has abortifacient properties. Emergency contraception is double talk ... Catholic hospitals are not free to prescribe or provide anything with abortifacient properties without contradicting their witness." Amen!  (Catholic hospitals and the 'emergency contraception' conundrum)  

And on and on it must go in a world where Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is not King and His Most Blessed Mother is not honored as its Immaculate Queen.

There is, of a course, a common thread that ties the agents of Antichrist in the realm of Modernity and those in the realm of Modernism together: both have used various "incremental" means to advance their respective and inter-related revolutions that winds up leading to the very gates of hell itself.

Thus it is that it should not be surprising at all that the naturalists who belong to the caucus of the organized crime family of the false opposite of the naturalist “right,” the Republican Party, in the United States Senate have reached a “deal” with their false opposites in the organized crime family of the “left,” the Democratic Party, to hold a floor vote on the confirmation of United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Loretta Lynch, to continue legacy of the lawless enabler of the crimes of the administration of President Barack Hussein Obama/Barack Soetoro and Vice President Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., Eric Holder, as the Attorney General of the United States of America. The deal, of course, was brokered over the blood of the innocent preborn, something that should not surprise us in the least:

WASHINGTON – Senate leaders say they have reached a deal that could allow for a long-delayed vote in the coming days on the nomination of Loretta Lynch for attorney general. 

The nomination has been held up amid a bitter dispute on Capitol Hill over an anti-human trafficking bill. But leaders on Tuesday announced a bipartisan proposal, which could in turn allow for Lynch's nomination to be taken up soon. 

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Tuesday that "as soon as" they finish the trafficking bill, they'll move to the attorney general vote -- "hopefully in the next day or so." 

Though Lynch faces heavy Republican opposition in her bid to succeed Eric Holder at the helm of the Justice Department, she may have just enough support to clear the 60-vote threshold and secure confirmation from the Senate. 

So far, the biggest hurdle had been the trafficking bill dispute. 

Lawmakers of both parties had been eager to move forward on the trafficking bill, which had wide bipartisan support until Democrats said they noticed a provision in the bill barring money in a new victims' fund from going to pay for abortions in most cases. They claimed this amounted to an unacceptable expansion of existing prohibitions on federal funding for abortions.

Negotiations have centered on how to structure the victims' fund to satisfy Democrats' concerns, while reassuring Republicans that they are not relaxing existing prohibitions on abortion spending. 

The deal, Fox News is told, will allow money in the fund to be used for legal aid and law enforcement, but not health care and medical services. However, a separate pool of money could be used for health care -- and existing abortion funding restrictions will remain in place. (Senators announce deal on anti-trafficking bill, clearing way for vote on AG nominee.)

The agreement on the trafficking bill ends a protracted debate on a once-bipartisan effort to fight trafficking by increasing penalties for perpetrators and support for victims.

The bill hit a snag last month when Democrats said they had become aware of an anti-abortion provision, blocking the legislation from moving forward as they demanded that Republicans remove language barring victims from using criminal fines in a victims’ fund to pay for abortions.

As a compromise, the fund will now essentially be split in two. One pool of money, collected from criminal offenders, will be deposited into the general fund of the Treasury and used for non-health care services, which will not be subject to abortion restrictions. Other money would come from that already appropriated by Congress for Community Health Centers. It would be available for health care and medical services and would be subject to longstanding laws restricting the use of federal funds for abortions. Many victims would be able to obtain abortions under the laws’ exception in cases of rape.

The deal seemed to evolve from a number of proposals. Senators Heidi Heitkamp, Democrat of North Dakota, and Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, introduced legislation as a starting point before the recent, two-week recess that would draw money for the victims’ fund from federal appropriations.

Last week, Mr. Cornyn proposed replacing the anti-abortion measure with similar language from the bipartisan Medicare bill, with the victims’ fund directly fed by federal money as the criminal fines offset that money.

It was Mr. Cornyn and Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, who led the negotiations that finally broke the logjam, communicating during the recess and through last weekend, an aide to Ms. Murray said. Those talks led to the plan that senators said could raise up to $30 million for victims.

Some attributed the breakthrough to pressure over Ms. Lynch’s delayed confirmation vote.

“It’s ridiculous that some politicians are so fixated on a narrow political agenda that they’d go so far as to block a highly qualified nominee for attorney general and deny care to survivors of human trafficking,” Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood, said in a statement.

While Democrats had resisted anything that seemed to be an expansion of abortion provisions, they lost some leverage after voting for a bill to address the Medicare payment system that also included longstanding abortion federal provisions.  (Senate Clears Hurdle to a Vote on Loretta Lynch’s Confirmation.)

Well, sure enough, the United States Senate approved the human trafficking bill by a vote of 99-0 yesterday, Wednesday, April 22, 2015, the Solemnity of Saint Joseph and the Commemoration of Saints Soter and Caius, with the Hyde Amendment “restrictions” that permit babies to be directly and intentionally killed in cases of rape, incest and when it is alleged that a mother’s life is endangered, “exceptions” that mean nothing in the practical order of things. This is being heralded as a “pro-life” victory when it is absolutely nothing of the sort:

The Senate on Wednesday passed legislation aimed at curbing human trafficking, ending a monthlong fight over abortion that bitterly divided the parties and held up attorney general nominee Loretta Lynch.

The legislation, which was approved 99-0, would create a special fund to help victims of sex crimes, bolstering efforts to combat what advocates decry as “modern-day slavery.”

But it was the bill’s language on abortion that received the lion’s share of attention in a floor battle that began in March.

Democrats repeatedly blocked an earlier version of the proposal, arguing it would create an expansion of the Hyde Amendment, which restricts the use of federal funds for abortions.

The deal that resolved the stalemate requires money for the victims’ fund to come from two sources: criminal fines and money that Congress previously appropriated.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) touted the vote as a win for Republicans and anti-abortion groups, saying that under the agreement, the trafficking legislation “won’t violate longstanding, bipartisan Hyde precedent.”

Republicans also shot down a last-ditch effort by Democrats to strip the abortion provisions from the legislation, which if successful would likely have killed the bill.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) urged his colleagues to remove “the divisive language that limits victims services and has held us up for so long."

"Congress has a long history of passing legislation to address human trafficking," he said. "We've consistently done so without abortion politics being in the discussion."

But Leahy was ultimately unsuccessful, with Democratic Sens. Bob Casey Jr. (Pa.), Joe Donnelly (Ind.) and Joe Manchin (W.Va.) voting against him.

But Democrats also claimed victory in the abortion fight, arguing that they blocked a Republican attempt to expand the abortion restrictions to private funding.

“We started this fight against a bill that applied Hyde to non-taxpayer dollars for the first time and brought in no real money for trafficking victims,” a Democratic aide said. “We’re now in a much better place.”

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) also touted the agreement, saying Democrats were able to “reach a deal that gets this done in a way that does not expand restrictions on women’s health to non-taxpayer dollars or to new programs.”

The trafficking legislation was expected to be an opportunity for bipartisanship in the Senate after the divisive fight over illegal immigration and funding the Department of Homeland Security. But Democrats said Republicans hoodwinked by including the abortion provision in the trafficking legislation.

Republicans denied hiding the language, and the office of Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s (D-Minn.), one of the sponsors, admitted that an aide knew the it was in the bill.

The fight over abortion funding quickly turned into a heated rhetorical battle, galvanizing outside groups and providing fodder for attacks on senators running for reelection in 2016.

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, which opposes abortion rights, praised the final legislation.

“This deal ensures no money in the fund is used for abortion and that any funding for health services is subject to the longstanding Hyde Amendment,” she said. “This entire incident has revealed what pro-lifers have long known to be the case: the Democratic Party is entirely beholden to the abortion industry.”

Pro-abortion rights organizations vowed to keep up the fight.

Debra Ness, the president of the National Partnership for Women & Families, said that even with the deal, “trafficking survivors will still face unconscionable restrictions to accessing the reproductive health services they need.”

“We commend Senators Harry Reid [D-Nev.] and Patty Murray and every senator who stood strong for women’s health,” she said in a statement. “We pledge to continue this fight. The Hyde Amendment is callous, punishing and discriminatory and it must be repealed.”

In addition, Wednesday’s vote paves the way for a vote on Lynch’s nomination, potentially as early as Thursday.

Republicans touted passage of the bill as another sign that they are getting the Senate back to work.

"None of us are spiking the football or saying we've done miraculous things,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said. “But it's undeniable that we've made discernable, concrete progress on important matters.”  (Senate Passing Trafficking Bill Ending Month Long Abortion Debate.)

Progress?

Hardly.

Oh well, now a vote may proceed on the nomination of the pro-abortion, pro-perversity, pro-statist Loretta Lynch, who is as unapologetic in her support of baby-killing without restrictions as the man she will replace once confirmed, Eric Holder.

Consider this report from the Cybercast News Service, written by editor Terence P. Jeffrey, about Loretta Lynch’s testimony before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary during her confirmation hearings to be the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York. Lynch said that the phrase “living fetus” was “hopelessly vague”:

Attorney General nominee Loretta Lynch joined a group of former U.S. attorneys in signing an amicus brief presented to the Supreme Court in 2006 in the case of Gonzales v. Carhart that argued that the federal ban on partial-birth abortion was unconstitutional because its language was too vague.

In their brief, for example, Lynch and the other former U.S. attorneys argued that the term “living fetus” was too vague to be understood by those responsible for following and enforcing the law.

Congress enacted the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act in 2003 with broad bipartisan support. Senators Joe Biden of Delaware, Harry Reid of Nevada, and Patrick Leahy of Vermont all voted for it.

he law defined a partial-birth abortion as follows: “(1) the term partial-birth abortion means an abortion in which the person performing the abortion (A) deliberately and intentionally vaginally delivers a living fetus until, in the case of a head-first presentation, the entire fetal head is outside the body of the mother, or, in the case of breech presentation, any part of the fetal trunk past the navel is outside the body of the mother, for the purpose of performing an overt act that the person knows will kill the partially delivered living fetus; and (B) performs the overt act, other than completion of delivery, that kills the partially delivered living fetus.”

In the amicus she signed, Lynch and her fellow former U.S. attorneys argued that this definition did not provide sufficient “clarity” as to what it prohibited.

“The statute purports to prohibit all abortions where the doctor ‘deliberately and intentionally vaginally delivers a living fetus’ up until a point on the fetus ‘for the purpose of performing an overt act that the person knows will kill the partially delivered fetus’ and ‘perform[s] the overt act, other than completion of delivery,’” said the amicus brief. “But, this definition fails to provide any clarity as to what procedures are prohibited, and thus fails constitutional due process requirements.”

For example, the former U.S. attorneys argued, the term “living fetus” was "hopelessly vague." They stated to the court:

Furthermore, the Ban's specific provisions, such as the phrase "living fetus," are hopelessly vague as a legal proscription. Planned Parenthood Fed'n of Am. v. Ashcroft, 320 F. Supp. 2d at 1183-84. As many courts have recognized in considering similar language, "reasonable physicians differ as to the meaning of what is 'living."' Planned Parenthood of S. Ariz. v. Woods, 982 F. Supp. 1369, 1379 (D. Ariz. 1997). Indeed, courts almost universally have found that the term "living fetus" is unconstitutionally vague. See Farmer, 220 F.3d at 136-37 (finding "living human fetus" to be vague); Richmond Med. Ctr.for Women v. Gilmore, 55 F. Supp. 2d441, 496 (E.D. Va. 1999)(same), aff'd, 224F.3d 337 (4th Cir. 2000) (on undue burden grounds); A Choice for Women v. Butterworth, 54 F. Supp. 2d 1148, 1158 (S.D. Fla. 1998) (same). It is unclear whether a "living fetus" must be intact, Miller, 30 F. Supp. 2d at 1165 ("[i]t is not clear whether 'living fetus' refers only to an intact fetus with a heartbeat or some other form of 'life,' or to a disarticulated fetus with a heartbeat or some other sign of 'life"'), or whether "living" is defined by some other criterion, compare Woods, 982 F. Supp. at 1379 (questioning whether a "living fetus" is simply a collection of living cells) with Planned Parenthood Fed'n of America v. Ashcroft, 320 F. Supp. 2d at 971 (defining living fetus as "pulsing umbilical cord" or heartbeat). A physician or prosecutor could not possibly know whether a given "overt act" "kill"-ed the fetus under the Ban without having a clear definition of what made it "living." See Richmond Med. Ctr.for Women, 55 F. Supp. 2d at 496; Woods, 982 F. Supp. at 1379. For these reasons too, the statute is plainly unconstitutional.

In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court rejected the argument that the language in the Partial Birth Abortion Ban was too vague. Writing for the court, Justice Anthony Kennedy said: “The act is not vague.”

In his opinion, Kennedy quoted a doctor's clinical description of a partial-birth abortion. He also quoted a nurse's description of a partial-birth abortion which the nurse witnessed. The nurse's description--as quoted in the Supreme Court opinion--said:

“Dr. Haskell went in with forceps and grabbed the baby's legs and pulled them down into the birth canal. Then he delivered the baby's body and the arms--everything but the head. The doctor kept the head right inside the uterus. …

"The baby's little fingers were clasping and unclasping, and his little feet were kicking. Then the doctor stuck the scissors in the back of his head, and the baby’s arms jerked out, like a startle reaction, like a flinch, like a baby does when he thinks he is going to fall.

"The doctor opened up the scissors, stuck a high-powered suction tube into the opening, and sucked the baby’s brains out. Now the baby went completely limp. ...

"He cut the umbilical cord and delivered the placenta. He threw the baby in a pan, along with the placenta and the instruments he had just used.”

At Lynch’s confirmation hearing on Jan. 28, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina asked Lynch about the amicus brief she had signed arguing against the partial-birth abortion ban.

"In 2006, you signed an amicus brief supporting Planned Parenthood's opposition to partial-birth abortion ban; is that correct?" Graham said.

"Yes," said Lynch, "I was one of a number of former Department of Justice officials [who signed it]. Although, the amicus brief that we signed was focused on the issue of the facial issues of the law, and how it might impact the perception of law enforcement's discretion and independence," she said.

"The only reason I mentioned that," said Graham, "is that if there's a Republican president in the future, an attorney general nominee takes an opposite view on an issue like abortion, I hope our friends on the other side will acknowledge it's OK to be an advocate for a cause, as their lawyer. That doesn't disqualify you from serving." (Loretta Lynch: “Living Fetus” is Hopelessly Vague Phrase.)

Attorney General nominee Loretta Lynch joined a group of former U.S. attorneys in signing an amicus brief presented to the Supreme Court in 2006 in the case of Gonzales v. Carhart that argued that the federal ban on partial-birth abortion was unconstitutional because its language was too vague.

In their brief, for example, Lynch and the other former U.S. attorneys argued that the term “living fetus” was too vague to be understood by those responsible for following and enforcing the law.

Congress enacted the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act in 2003 with broad bipartisan support. Senators Joe Biden of Delaware, Harry Reid of Nevada, and Patrick Leahy of Vermont all voted for it.

he law defined a partial-birth abortion as follows: “(1) the term partial-birth abortion means an abortion in which the person performing the abortion (A) deliberately and intentionally vaginally delivers a living fetus until, in the case of a head-first presentation, the entire fetal head is outside the body of the mother, or, in the case of breech presentation, any part of the fetal trunk past the navel is outside the body of the mother, for the purpose of performing an overt act that the person knows will kill the partially delivered living fetus; and (B) performs the overt act, other than completion of delivery, that kills the partially delivered living fetus.”

In the amicus she signed, Lynch and her fellow former U.S. attorneys argued that this definition did not provide sufficient “clarity” as to what it prohibited.

“The statute purports to prohibit all abortions where the doctor ‘deliberately and intentionally vaginally delivers a living fetus’ up until a point on the fetus ‘for the purpose of performing an overt act that the person knows will kill the partially delivered fetus’ and ‘perform[s] the overt act, other than completion of delivery,’” said the amicus brief. “But, this definition fails to provide any clarity as to what procedures are prohibited, and thus fails constitutional due process requirements.”

For example, the former U.S. attorneys argued, the term “living fetus” was "hopelessly vague." They stated to the court:

Furthermore, the Ban's specific provisions, such as the phrase "living fetus," are hopelessly vague as a legal proscription. Planned Parenthood Fed'n of Am. v. Ashcroft, 320 F. Supp. 2d at 1183-84. As many courts have recognized in considering similar language, "reasonable physicians differ as to the meaning of what is 'living."' Planned Parenthood of S. Ariz. v. Woods, 982 F. Supp. 1369, 1379 (D. Ariz. 1997). Indeed, courts almost universally have found that the term "living fetus" is unconstitutionally vague. See Farmer, 220 F.3d at 136-37 (finding "living human fetus" to be vague); Richmond Med. Ctr.for Women v. Gilmore, 55 F. Supp. 2d441, 496 (E.D. Va. 1999)(same), aff'd, 224F.3d 337 (4th Cir. 2000) (on undue burden grounds); A Choice for Women v. Butterworth, 54 F. Supp. 2d 1148, 1158 (S.D. Fla. 1998) (same). It is unclear whether a "living fetus" must be intact, Miller, 30 F. Supp. 2d at 1165 ("[i]t is not clear whether 'living fetus' refers only to an intact fetus with a heartbeat or some other form of 'life,' or to a disarticulated fetus with a heartbeat or some other sign of 'life"'), or whether "living" is defined by some other criterion, compare Woods, 982 F. Supp. at 1379 (questioning whether a "living fetus" is simply a collection of living cells) with Planned Parenthood Fed'n of America v. Ashcroft, 320 F. Supp. 2d at 971 (defining living fetus as "pulsing umbilical cord" or heartbeat). A physician or prosecutor could not possibly know whether a given "overt act" "kill"-ed the fetus under the Ban without having a clear definition of what made it "living." See Richmond Med. Ctr.for Women, 55 F. Supp. 2d at 496; Woods, 982 F. Supp. at 1379. For these reasons too, the statute is plainly unconstitutional.

In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court rejected the argument that the language in the Partial Birth Abortion Ban was too vague. Writing for the court, Justice Anthony Kennedy said: “The act is not vague.”

In his opinion, Kennedy quoted a doctor's clinical description of a partial-birth abortion. He also quoted a nurse's description of a partial-birth abortion which the nurse witnessed. The nurse's description--as quoted in the Supreme Court opinion--said:

“Dr. Haskell went in with forceps and grabbed the baby's legs and pulled them down into the birth canal. Then he delivered the baby's body and the arms--everything but the head. The doctor kept the head right inside the uterus. …

"The baby's little fingers were clasping and unclasping, and his little feet were kicking. Then the doctor stuck the scissors in the back of his head, and the baby’s arms jerked out, like a startle reaction, like a flinch, like a baby does when he thinks he is going to fall.

"The doctor opened up the scissors, stuck a high-powered suction tube into the opening, and sucked the baby’s brains out. Now the baby went completely limp. ...

"He cut the umbilical cord and delivered the placenta. He threw the baby in a pan, along with the placenta and the instruments he had just used.”

At Lynch’s confirmation hearing on Jan. 28, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina asked Lynch about the amicus brief she had signed arguing against the partial-birth abortion ban.

"In 2006, you signed an amicus brief supporting Planned Parenthood's opposition to partial-birth abortion ban; is that correct?" Graham said.

"Yes," said Lynch, "I was one of a number of former Department of Justice officials [who signed it]. Although, the amicus brief that we signed was focused on the issue of the facial issues of the law, and how it might impact the perception of law enforcement's discretion and independence," she said.

"The only reason I mentioned that," said Graham, "is that if there's a Republican president in the future, an attorney general nominee takes an opposite view on an issue like abortion, I hope our friends on the other side will acknowledge it's OK to be an advocate for a cause, as their lawyer. That doesn't disqualify you from serving."  (Loretta Lynch: “Living Fetus” is Hopelessly Vague Phrase.)

“That doesn’t disqualify you from serving.” That’s rich, Senator Graham, very rich.

Would a person be disqualified from serving as the Attorney General of the United States of America, because he is perceived to be a white supremacist or an anti-Semite?

If the answer is inthe affirmative, Senator Graham, then it would be very good for you to explain how one who supports the slicing and dicing of innocent human beings at any stage of development in his mother’s womb is qualified to serve in any capacity of governmental trust, whether elected or appointed?

Well, Lindsey Graham, who is United States Senator John Sidney McCain III’s war mongering partner in advocating American “boots on the ground” as the solution to every armed conflict on the globe, something that has not worked out too very well in Iraq or Afghanistan, is perfectly qualified to sound illogical as he is a thirty-third degree Freemason who has voted to confirm one pro-abortion, pro-perversity judicial nominee after another, including that of then-United States Solicitor General Elena Kagan in 2010:

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) announced Tuesday that he will support the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, making him the first senator to cross party lines in favor of or against the nominee.

During a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting, Graham explained his vote in favor of Kagan as a product of his view that senators ought to defer to the president’s prerogative to pick judges except in extraordinary circumstances.

“There’s plenty of reasons for conservatives to vote no, plenty of good reasons, but I also think there’s a good reason for conservatives to vote yes and that’s provided in the Constitution,” Graham said. “I understood we lost; President Obama won. And I’ve got a lot of opportunity to disagree with him. But the Constitution, in my view, puts a responsibility on me a senator not to replace my judgment for his.”

Graham suggested that some of his colleagues were more focused on upcoming elections for their seats than on the voters’ choice of Obama in 2008. “I’m going to vote for her because I believe the last election had consequences,” Graham said. "I could give you 100 reasons I could vote no--if I based my vote on how she disagrees with me."

“How do you stay within keeping your job and honoring the fact that the people have spoken?" Graham asked. Kagan, he said, "would not have been someone I would have chosen, but the person who did choose, President Obama, I think chose wisely.”

While many of Graham's GOP colleagues have argued passionately that Kagan showed disrespect to the military when she locked recruiters out of the Harvard Career Services office because of the ban on openly gay servicemembers, the longtime Navy lawyer said he wasn't troubled.

“In 2005, more Harvard graduates entered the military than at any time in history….At the end of the day it didn’t affect it, it actually helped,” Graham said. “If I believe she had animosity in her heart about those who wear the uniform I would easily vote no. I don’t believe that.” 

Graham said he was more impressed with her forceful advocacy for the Obama Administration's position in national security cases. "I thought she's done a good job representing our nation in war-on-terror issues, which are very important to me….I think that she understands we’re at war," Graham said. "I believe that she is a loyal American, very patriotic and loves the military as much as anyone else." (Graham is Kagan's first GOP vote for court.)

Here is a memo to United States Senator Lindsey Graham that I wrote five years ago:

Dear Senator Graham:

It matter not whether the Solicitor General of the United States of America, Elena Kagan, whose nomination to serve as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States of America you voted to approve as a member of the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, agrees with you on anything or everything. What matters is that Solicitor General Kagan believes that he civil law can permit licitly the slaughter, both by chemical and surgical means, of innocent human beings whose only crime is having been conceived as the natural fruit of procreative powers that God has given to zenith of His creative handiwork, man. No such person who supports even one direct, intentional attack on any innocent human being at any stage of life from the moment of fertilization until natural deal is "qualified" to hold any position of public trust, whether appointed or elected.

Solicitor General Elena Kagan "disagrees" with God Himself, Who has expressly forbidden the direct killing of the innocent, which is part of the Natural Law itself, in His Fifth Commandment. Solicitor General Elena Kagan is unfit to hold any public office no matter her "qualifications" for doing so in the eyes of the world. Support for even one direct abortion, whether by chemical or surgical means, disqualifies one from being a fit instrument of the public weal, which must be exercised at all times to help advance man's Last End: the possession of the glory of the Beatific Vision of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost for all eternity as a member of His one true Church, the Catholic Church, that He founded upon the Rock of Peter, the Pope, and outside of which there is no salvation and without which there can be no true social order (see appendix below).

Social order is contingent upon order within the souls of men, something that even some of the Greek and Roman writers of antiquity, who had recourse to reason alone without being enlightened by the light of Divine Revelation, understood. It is impossible to produce social order when the souls of men, who are, after all contingent beings who did not create themselves and whose bodies are destined one day for the corruption of the grave until the General Judgment of the Living and the Dead on the Last Day, are in such states of disorder as to reduce to the status of a "disagreement" positions taken in support of the very social evils that cry out to Heaven for vengeance and upon which no true social order can ever be established and maintained.

Writing in the Sixteenth Century, Silvio "Cardinal" Antoniano, wrote the following words that are just as relevant now as when he wrote them because they express eternal truths that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ has entrusted to His Catholic Church for their eternal safekeeping and infallible explication:

The more closely the temporal power of a nation aligns itself with the spiritual, and the more it fosters and promotes the latter, by so much the more it contributes to the conservation of the commonwealth. For it is the aim of the ecclesiastical authority by the use of spiritual means, to form good Christians in accordance with its own particular end and object; and in doing this it helps at the same time to form good citizens, and prepares them to meet their obligations as members of a civil society. This follows of necessity because in the City of God, the Holy Roman Catholic Church, a good citizen and an upright man are absolutely one and the same thing. How grave therefore is the error of those who separate things so closely united, and who think that they can produce good citizens by ways and methods other than those which make for the formation of good Christians. For, let human prudence say what it likes and reason as it pleases, it is impossible to produce true temporal peace and tranquillity by things repugnant or opposed to the peace and happiness of eternity. (Silvio Cardinal Antoniano, quoted by Pope Pius XI in Divini Illius Magistri, December 31, 1929.)  

It matters not whether Elena Kagan disagrees with you or with me about anything. It matters that she is displeasing God by her support for one of the gravest social evils imaginable. And while, Senator Graham, you are correct in stating that elections have consequences, you are grievously incorrect in concluding that this means you must support a "qualified" nominee of the man, Barack Hussein Obama, whose election on November 4, 2008, you opposed vigorously. The election of pro-abortion statist should mean that those in public office who have at least some understanding of the evils of our day are emboldened to oppose those evils as they manifest themselves in such an administration as the current one.

Would you, Senator Graham, vote to confirm a nominee to the Supreme Court of the United States of America who was an active member of an organization, the Ku Klux Klan, that was once quite influential in the politics and governance of your own home state of South Carolina? If not, why do you believe that a nominee who believes in a graver evil than the unquestionably heinous evils promoted by the Ku Klux Klan under cover of the civil law is qualified to serve during "good behavior" (effectively a lifetime appointment) on the highest judicial tribunal in this country? How are you advancing "true temporal peace and tranquility" by supporting a nominee who promotes things that are "repugnant or opposed to the peace and happiness of eternity"?

The "people" are not the sovereign of any nation, including our own. The "people" must choose to act in accord with the binding precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law as these have been entrusted to the Catholic Church for their explication without any deviation whatsoever. If they fail to do by electing men such as Barack Hussein Obama, then it is the obligation of those in public life committed, at least ostensibly, to right principles to resist the "people" by remember these stirring words written by Pope Leo XIII in Sapientiae Christianae, January 10, 1890:

Now, if the natural law enjoins us to love devotedly and to defend the country in which we had birth, and in which we were brought up, so that every good citizen hesitates not to face death for his native land, very much more is it the urgent duty of Christians to be ever quickened by like feelings toward the Church. For the Church is the holy City of the living God, born of God Himself, and by Him built up and established. Upon this earth, indeed, she accomplishes her pilgrimage, but by instructing and guiding men she summons them to eternal happiness. We are bound, then, to love dearly the country whence we have received the means of enjoyment this mortal life affords, but we have a much more urgent obligation to love, with ardent love, the Church to which we owe the life of the soul, a life that will endure forever. For fitting it is to prefer the good of the soul to the well-being of the body, inasmuch as duties toward God are of a far more hallowed character than those toward men.

Moreover, if we would judge aright, the supernatural love for the Church and the natural love of our own country proceed from the same eternal principle, since God Himself is their Author and originating Cause. Consequently, it follows that between the duties they respectively enjoin, neither can come into collision with the other. We can, certainly, and should love ourselves, bear ourselves kindly toward our fellow men, nourish affection for the State and the governing powers; but at the same time we can and must cherish toward the Church a feeling of filial piety, and love God with the deepest love of which we are capable. The order of precedence of these duties is, however, at times, either under stress of public calamities, or through the perverse will of men, inverted. For, instances occur where the State seems to require from men as subjects one thing, and religion, from men as Christians, quite another; and this in reality without any other ground, than that the rulers of the State either hold the sacred power of the Church of no account, or endeavor to subject it to their own will. Hence arises a conflict, and an occasion, through such conflict, of virtue being put to the proof. The two powers are confronted and urge their behests in a contrary sense; to obey both is wholly impossible. No man can serve two masters, for to please the one amounts to contemning the other.

As to which should be preferred no one ought to balance for an instant. It is a high crime indeed to withdraw allegiance from God in order to please men, an act of consummate wickedness to break the laws of Jesus Christ, in order to yield obedience to earthly rulers, or, under pretext of keeping the civil law, to ignore the rights of the Church; "we ought to obey God rather than men." This answer, which of old Peter and the other Apostles were used to give the civil authorities who enjoined unrighteous things, we must, in like circumstances, give always and without hesitation. No better citizen is there, whether in time of peace or war, than the Christian who is mindful of his duty; but such a one should be ready to suffer all things, even death itself, rather than abandon the cause of God or of the Church. (Pope Leo XIII, Sapientiae Christianae, January 10, 1890.)  

Although you are not a member of the Catholic Church, Senator Graham, to whose maternal bosom we pray that you are joined before you die, you are bound by these words as the authority of Holy Mother Church extends to all men and to all nations on the face of this earth without any exception or qualification whatsoever, something that even the men who appear to be the "leaders" of the Catholic Church on earth (but who are in fact defectors from the Catholic Faith themselves) do not understand or accept. You have a solemn duty to oppose evil and to oppose the appointment of those who promote evil under cover of the civil law. Christ the King is sovereign of men and their nations, not "the people" or their elected officials--and the appointees named thereby--in the civil government.

There are consequences for the choices that we make in this passing, mortal vale of tears. Pope Pius XI explained the eternally fatal consequences of those who dare to support the slaughter of the innocent preborn: '

"Those who hold the reins of government should not forget that it is the duty of public authority by appropriate laws and sanctions to defend the lives of the innocent, and this all the more so since those whose lives are endangered and assailed cannot defend themselves. Among whom we must mention in the first place infants hidden in the mother's womb. And if the public magistrates not only do not defend them, but by their laws and ordinances betray them to death at the hands of doctors or of others, let them remember that God is the Judge and Avenger of innocent blood which cried from earth to Heaven." (Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii, December 31, 1930.)

Barack Hussein Obama and Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., and Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, whose nomination last year to serve on the Supreme Court also received your support, and Solicitor General Elena Kagan, to say nothing of the countless other fully pro-abortion figures in public life, including each member of the majority party who serve on the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, will face this judgment at the time of their deaths.

Although Solicitor General Elena Kagan is assured of confirmation by a vote of the full membership of the United States Senate as that body is control of the Democratic Party, you are solely responsible before Christ the King for your own support of Elena Kagan. Rather than being concerned with showing deference to "the people," Senator Graham, you ought to be concerned for your own soul's sake for for the "results" of elections but for the results of your own moral choices and for the consequences of your own words that have communicated to us that a woman who supports chemical and surgical baby-killing is "qualified" to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States of America. She is not so qualified, Senator Graham.

To this I would add, of course, that Loretta Lynch is fundamentally disqualified to serve as Attorney General of the United States of America, and it should not be difficult for one who says he is "pro-life" to oppose her nomation with vigor.

Lindsey Graham has enabled the expansion of the size, the scope and the power of the Federal government during the administrations of President George Walker Bush and President Barack Hussein Obama/Barry Soetoro in the name of “national security,” being willing to sacrifice legitimate human liberties to keep us “safe.”

Lindsey Graham is a fool, a useful tool of statists at home and a willing lapdog of the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee who has boasted that he would love to have the first all-Jewish Cabinet in America if he ever got elected to the office of the President of the United States of America:

On the biggest challenge facing his potential 2016 campaign:

“The means. If I put together a finance team that will make me financially competitive enough to stay in this thing…I may have the first all-Jewish cabinet in America because of the pro-Israel funding. [Chuckles.]  Bottom line is, I’ve got a lot of support from the pro-Israel funding. Can I raise enough hard money to get through Iowa and New Hampshire and South Carolina with a staff about 75?…South Carolina is unique because I’m from there. So here’s the deal. If I can raise $15 million — that’s enough and that can make me competitive…If I can perform well in Iowa to get some momentum coming into New Hampshire, hit hard here, finish in the top tier, I’ll win South Carolina and I’m in the final four.” (Read more at the Wall Street Journal.)

Lindsey Graham is as delusional as he is a court jester as he has as much chance to win the 2016 Republican Presidential nomination as the late pro-abortion, pro-perversity United States Senator Arlen Specter (D-R-D, Pennsylvania) had on March 31, 1995, when announced a Quixotic presidential bid to seek to blunt the candidacy of Patrick Joseph Buchanan, withdrawing, though, on November 25, 1995, well before the Iowa caucuses, which were held on Monday, February 12, 1996. Specter endorsed his fellow native Kansan, the thirty-third degree Freemason named Robert Joseph Dole, Jr.

Moreover, Lindsey Graham is both foolish and delusion for believing that any country can be made secure while sanctioning the shedding of innocent blood under cover of the civil law and providing “legal” privileges to those engaged in perverse sins against nature while at the same time promoting all manner of sins (usury, indecency, immodesty, rank licentiousness, unjust and unconstitutional wars of aggression) throughout the so-called “popular culture.”

Lindsey Graham also has no use for those, such as United States Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), another Southern Baptist and reflexive policies of the Zionist State of Israel who “told off” a group that had gathered in Washington, District of Columbia, in September of 2014 (see Ted Cruz walks out of Christian event after being booed), or United States Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), whose foreign policy is based on the legitimate national security interests and not those of other nations, including Israel, who are concerned about such “oddities” as adherence to the provisions of the Constitution of the United States of America that restrict the power of Federal government while reserving other powers to the states and the people therein. Such arcane “concerns” befuddle Lindsey Graham just as much a contention that he must oppose all abortions at all times and oppose those who seek his electoral support or his vote to be confirmed to such appointed office in the Federal government.

Indeed, as has been noted throughout this current series of commentaries, Republican careerists care only about winning, which is why they want the “social issues” to disappear, and even though the aforementioned Senator Rand Paul has gotten some very high marks for combative comments designed to blunt the absolutist pro-abortion position of the Democratic Party, whose chairwoman at this time is United States Representative Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-Florida), he did so by emphasizing Wasserman-Schultz’s support for the killing of preborn babies between after their seventh month of development within what should be the sanctuaries of their mothers’ wombs.

Such an emphasis, although done for rhetorical purposes to tag the Democrats with the extremist label, implies that killing a child in the later stages of development within his mother’s womb is somehow more of a crime than killing him earlier in his development. It should be noted as well that Senator Paul deftly managed to avoid getting caught up in questions concerning his support for or opposition to exceptions to surgical baby-killing, thereby appearing to minimize the importance of opposing all abortions, whether chemical or surgical, as matter of principle. One who truly understands the binding precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law, would be eager to explain his opposition to all abortions without exception even though it may not be possible in the practical order of things to pass legislation to do so given the prevalence of sentimentality and illogic as the foundation for what most Americans say they “feel” about the killing of the preborn.

Here is a report on what Senator Paul said to an Associated Press reporter, Philip, Elliott, and the firestorm that erupted thereafter:

Sen. Rand Paul sparked a partisan row on the issue of abortion a day after throwing his hat into the presidential race, one in which neither side was willing to answer any detailed, nuanced questions on the topic.

In a dustup that played out in the press, Mr. Paul (R., Ky.) was unwilling to answer specific questions on which exemptions to abortion bans he supports, while Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz wouldn’t comment on which, if any, restrictions she favors on the right to get an abortion.

Neither party is particularly eager to get into the specifics or nuances of their broader political position on the topic of abortion — in part because polling shows a majority of the country falls into a middle ground on the issue. The two parties must walk a thin line between trying to appeal to the broadest possible electorate in general elections while still appeasing their respective base of voters.

Republicans, for instance, aren’t eager to answer questions about whether they support exemptions on abortion restrictions in the case of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother. Democrats aren’t keen to talk about late-term abortions, which have been banned in many parts of the country.

Grassroots activists in the antiabortion movement and the evangelical Christian community make up an energetic part of the Republican base. Groups supporting abortion rights like Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America by and large back Democrats.

On Wednesday, Mr. Paul was asked by Associated Press reporter Philip Elliott about his position on the issue, and grew somewhat testy when pressed on exemptions.

“I think the most important thing is the general concept of: Do you support the sanctity of life? Do you think there’s something special about life? Do you think when we’re born that a human baby is different than an animal, that there’s something special that is imbued into human life? And I think there is,” he said in the interview with the Associated Press. “What divides us as a culture is, when does life begin.”

Mr. Paul noted that he has supported antiabortion bills that have both included and not included exemptions.

When pressed further, he said: “Sometimes I think putting it in neat categories is a mistake. So I gave you about a five-minute answer. Put my five-minute answer in.”

Later, when taking questions after a speech in Milford, N.H., he challenged reporters to put the question back to Democrats: “Is it okay to kill a 7-pound baby in the uterus? … You go back and go ask Debbie Wasserman Schultz if she’s okay with killing a 7-pound baby that’s just not born yet.”

Ms. Wasserman Schultz provided an answer in a statement following Mr. Paul’s remarks:

“Here’s an answer. I support letting women and their doctors make this decision without government getting involved. Period. End of story. Now your turn, Senator Paul. We know you want to allow government officials like yourself to make this decision for women — but do you stand by your opposition to any exceptions, even when it comes to rape, incest, or life of the mother? Or do we just have different definitions of ‘personal liberty’?” she said.

After Republicans noted that Ms. Wasserman Schultz (D., Fla.) seemed to be calling for abortions without restrictions, the Democratic Party declined to clarify if her statement meant that she favored no restrictions at all on abortions. A DNC spokeswoman pointed only to the party platform, which is equally vague on the topic, and declined to answer follow-up questions. A spokesman for Mr. Paul insisted he had already addressed the topic and pointed to his media interviews.

Polling on the issue is complicated — and often depends on how the question is phrased. According to a 2014 Gallup poll, 47% of Americans described themselves broadly as “pro-choice,” while 46% described themselves as “pro-life.” But when given more options, 50% of Americans said that abortion should be “legal only under certain circumstances.” Another 28% said it should be legal always, while 21% said abortion should never be legal.

A CNN/ORC poll from the same year breaks down voter sentiment even further. That survey finds that 27% say that abortion should always be legal, 13% be legal in most circumstances, 38% support legal abortion in few circumstances, and 20% say it should always be illegal.

With public opinion largely falling in the middle, both political parties face the challenge of keeping pace with the broad public sentiment while keeping their base voters motivated and happy. (Rand Paul Interview Sparks Dustup Over Abortion Rights.)

We have the conciliar revolutionaries to thank for this confusion, which is being added to on a daily basis by Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the Argentine Apostate.

Those with the eyes to see will recognize that Rand Paul, whose father, former United States Representative Ron Paul (R-Texas) takes a “states’ rights” view with respect to legislation concerning the taking of innocent preborn human life (see God's Rights or States Rights?), expected such a question would come up at some point in his campaign and was committed to avoid answering it by going on the offensive. By doing so, however, Senator Paul made it appear, perhaps by choice, that a seven-pound preborn was more inviolable than a younger preborn child. Moreover, we oppose the direct, intentional taking of all innocent human life from the first moment of conception through all subsequent stages until natural death not because it is opposed to the law of God, something that simply cannot be mentioned in our “pluralistic” society that is but the ultimate end product of the Protestant Revolution’s overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King.

A believing Catholic welcomes all “tough” questions on issues pertaining to the inviolability of each human life, including those rare instances in which a woman conceives a baby as a result of a forcible attack upon her purity. A believing Catholic unconcerned about human respect or electoral results would address the matter in supernatural terms, namely, that a woman who conceives a child after such an assault has been asked by the good God to bear a cross for His greater honor and glory through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary. The graces won for her by the shedding of every single drop of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ on the wood of the Holy Cross and that stand ready to flow into her heart and soul through the loving hands of His Most Blessed Mother, she who is the Mediatrix of All Graces, are more than sufficient for her to deal with and prosper under her cross. Such a woman has been asked to bring to birth a new life, either raising the child herself to give Him honor and glory now as a foretaste of doing so for all eternity in Heaven or making arrangements for the child to be placed up for adoption into a loving Catholic family that would so in her place and as she prayed fervently for the child until she dies and as she forgave her assailant she herself is forgiven whenever she makes use of the Sacred Tribunal of Penance.

Alas, we do not live in a Catholic world, one where men and their nations submit themselves to the Social Reign of Christ the King as It must be exercised by the Catholic Church, which is precisely the reason why matters that have been revealed by God Himself and taught infallibly by His Holy Catholic Church, truths that are part of the Natural Law and thus knowable, albeit imperfectly, by reason alone, are open for "discussion" today.

There would be no discussion of abortion in a Catholic world. Catholics would understand that there can never be any deliberate, intentional attack upon an innocent human life at any time after conception. There would thus be nothing like Stericycle in which to invest one's money.

There would be no discussion of contraception, which Willard Mitt Romney said on Saturday, January 7, 2012, in a debate of the midget naturalists at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire, was "working just fine, just leave it alone" (see 2012 ABC/Yahoo!/WMUR New Hampshire GOP primary debate), in a Catholic world, as Catholics would know that no one has any right from God to interfere with His Sovereignty over the sanctity and fecundity of marriage, that no one can ever change the primary end of marriage from the procreation and education of children into anything else.

There would be no discussion of the absurdity of "marriage" between persons of the same gender who are inclined to and/or commit perverse sins against nature in a Catholic world as Catholics would know that such sins are abominations in the sight of God and that those who commit them constitute a group consisting of people for whose conversion we must pray, not a legitimate "civil rights" constituency to which politicians must cater and cower in fright of offending.

Perhaps to drive home the point a bit more, a nation that submitted itself to the sweet yoke of the Social Reign of Christ the King would never find itself in a situation where a statist, pro-abort demagogue named Barack Hussein Obama (or Barry Soetero) enjoyed the support of between two-fifths and half of its voting-age population, no less one in which such a demagogue would be opposed by a man whose positions on fundamental issues of moral truth have shifted over the course of time to suit his immediate political ends and who has sought to make money as an ultimate end, being clueless about how the promotion and protection of sins under the cover of the civil law make it impossible to realize national "prosperity" and international "peace."

Here is a news flash to any careerist Republican: anyone who supports the direct, intentional taking of an innocent human life at any time for any reason has taken an "extreme position.” The  killing of a baby in the later stages of his development in his mother's womb is no more morally heinous than killing a baby in the earlier stages, a point that I made eight years ago when explaining that the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States of America in the aforementioned case of Gonzales v. Carhart, April 18, 2007, was not a victory at all as it is still perfectly permissible to kill babies in the later stages of pregnancy by methods other than method that was under review by the Court in that case, partial-birth abortion:

1. The direct, intentional killing of an innocent human being is equally morally heinous no matter the age at which the human being is killed. That is, the killing of six week old child in his mother's womb is the same crime morally as the direct, intentional killing of a ninety year old man.

2. The particular method by which a human being is killed does not make the act of killing any more immoral than the use of another method, admitting that it is permissible in the administration of civil justice for legislators and jurists to take into consideration such methods when legislating and meting out punishments for those adjudged guilty after due process of law of having committed acts that of their nature are in opposition to the binding precepts of the Fifth Commandment.

3. Thus it is that the use of the baby-killing method invented by a Dr. Martin Haskell, known "medically" as "intact dilation and extraction," to provide a means of killing a baby that was less "invasive" and thus allegedly less is no more morally heinous than the killing of an innocent preborn baby by means a suction vacuum machine that is twenty-nine times more powerful than the home vacuum cleaner.

4. The use of "intact dilation and extraction" is no more morally heinous than the killing of an innocent preborn baby by means of the use of various injections, including that of potassium chloride, into the baby so as to kill it in the womb before it is passed out stillborn or taken out by means of a Caesarian section.

5. The use of "intact dilation and extraction" is no more morally heinous the the killing of an innocent preborn baby by means of the use of what is known as the "hysterotomy," a procedure by which a preborn baby is killed by the use of a procedure similar to a Caesarian section, except that the child's neck is twisted in the womb before it is removed. (The hysterotomy was made famous in the case of Dr. Kenneth Edelin.)

6. The use of "intact dilation and extraction" is no more morally heinous than the "dilation and evacuation" method of killing a baby by means of carving up a baby in the uterus and then extracting his remains with forceps.

7. Those, including some conciliar bishops, have said that partial birth abortion is infanticide have missed the point entirely: each and every abortion kills a living baby deader than dead. Each abortion, whether chemically induced or surgically performed, is infanticide. (See Every Abortion Kills a Baby Dead).

8.The Partial Birth Abortion bill that is now the law of the land contains an immoral "life of the mother" exception, meaning that this procedure of killing a baby will still be used. And it will be used not only in cases where it is alleged that a mother's life is "endangered." Do we really think that those who kill for a living are going to be scrupulously honest about observing the exact conditions of the "life of the mother" exception?

9. Baby-killers will simply resort to the dilation and evacuation means of killing children if they cannot justify the use of partial birth abortion, meaning, as I have been contended since 1995, that zero babies will be saved by the law and by yesterday's decision in Gonzales v. Carhart. Indeed, Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy went to great lengths to remind those who challenged the law that the other procedures, which he described in great detail, would remain perfectly legal. Justice Kennedy also explained that baby-killers who "accidentally" turned a dilation and evacuation killing of a child into an intact dilation and extraction (partial birth abortion) killing of a child would face no legal liability:

This reasoning, however, does not take account of the Act's intent requirements, which preclude liability from attaching to an accidental intact D&E. If a doctor's intent at the outset is to perform a D&E in which the fetus would not be delivered to either of the Act's anatomical landmarks, but the fetus nonetheless is delivered past one of those points, the requisite and prohibited scienter is not present. 18 U. S. C. §1531(b)(1)(A) (2000 ed., Supp. IV). When a doctor in that situation completes an abortion by performing an intact D&E, the doctor does not violate the Act. It is true that intent to cause a result may sometimes be inferred if a person "knows that that result is practically certain to follow from his conduct." 1 LaFave §5.2(a), at 341. Yet abortion doctors intending at the outset to perform a standard D&E procedure will not know that a prohibited abortion "is practically certain to follow from" their conduct. Ibid. A fetus is only delivered largely intact in a small fraction of the overall number of D&E abortions. Planned Parenthood, 320 F. Supp. 2d, at 965. (Gonzales v. Carhart)

10. In other words, ladies and gentlemen, baby-killers will still be able to kill babies in the later stages of pregnancy by the use of the saline solution abortion and the hysterotomy and the dilation and evacuation (and even an actual hysterectomy performed for reasons of killing a preborn child and to honor a woman's elective wishes to render herself sterile from that point forward). The belief that a "victory" was won yesterday is an illusion of the worst sort.

The whole of the "incrementalist" approach to "restoring" legal protection to the innocent preborn is based upon the lie that it is "necessary" to concede in civil law that there are some circumstances in which a baby can be directly targeted for execution as a matter of principle, This lie is itself premised upon the false belief that baby-killers will be scrupulous in observing the "exceptions" that the incrementalists get enacted into law.

Most of those who identify themselves as "conservatives" are apologetic and tongue-tied when endeavoring to explain even their partial opposition to chemical and surgical baby-killing. Those of the "left" are unapologetic supporters of baby-killing and perversity and other evils without exception or restraint.

If people are willing to scratch below the surface and avoid superficial conclusions about events in a world that has been thrown upside down by the mutually reinforcing errors of Modernity and Modernism, they would find that the naturalists of the "left" have taken true concepts and inverted them for their own nefarious purposes.

That is, most of the naturalists of the "left" believe that their ideology must be accepted without question. Those who serve as administrators of universities and colleges or as judges or as legislators or as elected executives or political appointees (such as the approximately 3700 people who serve in a president's Cabinet or in the White House) or career bureaucrats (civil servants) believe that in their policies dogmatically. Most of these naturalists believe that "the government" is true secular "church," outside of which no one is free to govern his own life. They believe that those who dissent from their political dogmas are, in essence, "heretics," if you will, who must be burned at the stake, figuratively speaking. Most of these people believe that the citizens are indeed the "mere creatures of the state" who must obey them, who have been given the necessity tools to order social and economic life to achieve what they consider to be "justice."

Although it is considered incendiary to call such people Marxists, this is indeed what they all. They admire the likes of Fidel and RaulCastro in Communist Cuba, who are going to receive a warm and friendly visit from their fellow-traveler, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, in September of 2015, and the late Hugo Chavez's authoritarian regime in Venezuela. Some of them were open admirers of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and the El Salvadoran rebels during the 1980s. (The Sandinistas are, of course, back in power in Nicaragua, having won at polls on November 5, 2006,what they lost there on February 25, 1990, after ten and one-half years of brutal, murderous Communist rule in this central American country. Ah, yes, the voice of the "people." President Daniel Ortega, who ordered the slaughter of the Mesquite Indians in Nicaragua and who repressed political opposition from 1979 to 2000, was congratulated on his victory by two of his strongest supporters, James Earl Carter, Jr., who wept openly at Ortega's loss to Violetta Chamorro in 1990, and one Fidel Castro.)  Our "leftists" believe in all of the shibboleths of egalitarianism, except, of course, that they believe themselves to be more "equal" than anyone else, and feminism and environmentalism and evolutionism and redistributionism. They believe that they have the right to dictate to the citizens how much of their money they can keep, what they can do with it, what they should eat, at what temperatures they may heat or cool their houses. Some would like to control how much gasoline that the "people" could purchase in a given money to "save" the environment.

Such people are not prone to compromise. They believe in their false dogmas with religious fervor. Some of them truly hate anyone who dares to disagree with them,  whether that disagreement stem from an objective presentation of facts on the merely natural level attesting to their lies and misrepresentations or from those who user deeper, supernatural arguments to demonstrate that they, the leftists, are enemies of Christ the King and thus of all legitimate social order. The naturalists of the false opposite of the "left" will cling tenaciously, yes, even to the point of their political deaths, to whatever policy gains they have achieved by their fraudulent assertions and/or the use of raw political power.

Yes, the "left" is committed to statism.

The "left" is committed to surgical abortion-on-demand without any restrictions whatsoever.

The "right," on the other hand, is committed to one thing: getting elected for the sake of getting elected. Period. The most pressing moral issue of our day, the daily slaughter of the innocent preborn, has disappeared from the agenda of the "right" because the "people" are concerned about King Money. And for all of the concern about "human liberty" on the part of various "conservatives" and libertarians, no nation can be truly free without yoking itself to the only standard of true human freedom, the Holy Cross of the Divine Redeemer, Christ the King.

This is progress?

What about truth?

What about planting seeds to change hearts and minds?

If one believes there is some utility in running for office, one must speak to the truth as there is not one blessed example that can be cited of a candidate who kept his mouth shut on the "social issues" in order to win an office becoming an outspoken advocate of those issues once elected. Compromise once to get elected, compromise again and again and again to stay elected and then to get re-elected and then elected to some "better" office. It's a farce from beginning to end as it is all based in naturalism and not in pleasing the true God of Divine Revelation as He has revealed Himself to us through His true Church.

Babies are being killed at more or less the same rate now as they were after the elections of 1974, 1976, 1978, 1980, 1982, 1984, 1986, 1988, 1990, 1992, 1994, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012 and last year's elections in 2014. When are we going to learn? When?

Republicans have repeatedly backed off of the single most important moral issue of the day in order to themselves more "marketable" in the eyes of the "moderates" who take a "middle ground" position on abortion while supporting, if not using, contraception without a qualm of conscience. Such "moderate voters" are concerned about "King Money," "Queen Money," "Prince Money, "Princess Money," and just plain "Citizen Money." No country is great if it is reduced merely to the level of being concerned about material prosperity. It is, as noted above, impossible to expect restore order in a world where things are repugnant to the peace and happiness of eternity are promoted under cover of the civil law, no less to expect to do so at a time when there is a paucity of a superabundance of Sanctifying and Actual Graces as a consequence of the sacrmental barrenness of the conciliar liturgical rites.

Obviously, my own “influence,” such as it has ever been, on the events of the day is nonexistent. Most people just roll their eyes when they are reminded of the fact that Catholicism is the one and only foundation of personal and social order. Most people simply do not want to believe that most people in this country are awash in error.

This is why we must have the courage of Saint George, whose feast we celebrate today, to stand up for the Holy Faith no matter how ridiculous this makes us look in the eyes of others or how much we are asked by Our Lord, Christ the King, to suffer as His consecrated slaves through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Here is an account of the life of Saint George as found in The Golden Legend, which was written by Archbishop Jacobus de Voragine, O.P.:

George is said of geos, which is as much to say as earth, and orge that is tilling. So George is to say as tilling the earth, that is his flesh. And S. Austin saith, in libro de Trinitate that, good earth is in the height of the mountains, in the temperance of the valleys, and in the plain of the fields. The first is good for herbs being green, the second to vines, and the third to wheat and corn. Thus the blessed George was high in despising low things, and therefore he had verdure in himself, he was attemperate by discretion, and therefore he had wine of gladness, and within he was plane of humility, and thereby put he forth wheat of good works. Or George may be said of gerar, that is holy, and of gyon, that is a wrestler, that is an holy wrestler, for he wrestled with the dragon. Or George is said of gero, that is a pilgrim, and gir, that is detrenched out, and ys, that is a councillor. He was a pilgrim in the sight of the world, and he was cut and detrenched by the crown of martyrdom, and he was a good councillor in preaching. And his legend is numbered among other scriptures apocryphal in the council of Nicene, because his martyrdom hath no certain relation. For in the calendar of Bede it is said that he suffered martyrdom in Persia in the city of Diaspolin, and in other places it is read that he resteth in the city of Diaspolin which tofore was called Lidda, which is by the city of Joppa or Japh. And in another place it is said that he suffered death under Diocletian and Maximian, which that time were emperors. And in another place under Diocletian emperor of Persia, being present seventy kings of his empire. And it is said here that he suffered death under Dacian the provost, then Diocletian and Maximian being emperors.

Here followeth the Life of S. George Martyr.

S. George was a knight and born in Cappadocia. On a time he came in to the province of Libya, to a city which is said Silene. And by this city was a stagne or a pond like a sea, wherein was a dragon which envenomed all the country. And on a time the people were assembled for to slay him, and when they saw him they fled. And when he came nigh the city he venomed the people with his breath, and therefore the people of the city gave to him every day two sheep for to feed him, because he should do no harm to the people, and when the sheep failed there was taken a man and a sheep. Then was an ordinance made in the town that there should be taken the children and young people of them of the town by lot, and every each one as it fell, were he gentle or poor, should be delivered when the lot fell on him or her. So it happed that many of them of the town were then delivered, insomuch that the lot fell upon the king's daughter, whereof the king was sorry, and said unto the people: For the love of the gods take gold and silver and all that I have, and let me have my daughter. They said: How sir! ye have made and ordained the law, and our children be now dead, and ye would do the contrary. Your daughter shall be given, or else we shall burn you and your house.

When the king saw he might no more do, he began to weep, and said to his daughter: Now shall I never see thine espousals. Then returned he to the people and demanded eight days' respite, and they granted it to him. And when the eight days were passed they came to him and said: Thou seest that the city perisheth: Then did the king do array his daughter like as she should be wedded, and embraced her, kissed her and gave her hls benediction, and after, led her to the place where the dragon was.

When she was there S. George passed by, and when he saw the lady he demanded the lady what she made there and she said: Go ye your way fair young man, that ye perish not also. Then said he: Tell to me what have ye and why weep ye, and doubt ye of nothing. When she saw that he would know, she said to him how she was delivered to the dragon. Then said S. George: Fair daughter, doubt ye no thing hereof for I shall help thee in the name of Jesu Christ. She said: For God's sake, good knight, go your way, and abide not with me, for ye may not deliver me. Thus as they spake together the dragon appeared and came running to them, and S. George was upon his horse, and drew out his sword and garnished him with the sign of the cross, and rode hardily against the dragon which came towards him, and smote him with his spear and hurt him sore and threw him to the ground. And after said to the maid: Deliver to me your girdle, and bind it about the neck of the dragon and be not afeard. When she had done so the dragon followed her as it had been a meek beast and debonair. Then she led him into the city, and the people fled by mountains and valleys, and said: Alas! alas! we shall be all dead. Then S. George said to them: Ne doubt ye no thing, without more, believe ye in God, Jesu Christ, and do ye to be baptized and I shall slay the dragon. Then the king was baptized and all his people, and S. George slew the dragon and smote off his head, and commanded that he should be thrown in the fields, and they took four carts with oxen that drew him out of the city.

Then were there well fifteen thousand men baptized, without women and children, and the king did do make a church there of our Lady and of S. George, in the which yet sourdeth a fountain of living water, which healeth sick people that drink thereof. After this the king offered to S. George as much money as there might be numbered, but he refused all and commanded that it should be given to poor people for God's sake; and enjoined the king four things, that is, that he should have charge of the churches, and that he should honour the priests and hear their service diligently, and that he should have pity on the poor people, and after, kissed the king and departed.

Now it happed that in the time of Diocletian and Maximian, which were emperors, was so great persecution of christian men that within a month were martyred well twenty-two thousand, and therefore they had so great dread that some renied and forsook God and did sacrifice to the idols. When S. George saw this, he left the habit of a knight and sold all that he had, and gave it to the poor, and took the habit of a christian man, and went into the middle of the paynims and began to cry: All the gods of the paynims and gentiles be devils, my God made the heavens and is very God. Then said the provost to him: Of what presumption cometh this to thee, that thou sayest that our gods be devils? And say to us what thou art and what is thy name. He answered anon and said: I am named George, I am a gentleman, a knight of Cappadocia, and have left all for to serve the God of heaven. Then the provost enforced himself to draw him unto his faith by fair words, and when he might not bring him thereto he did do raise him on a gibbet; and so much beat him with great staves and broches of iron, that his body was all tobroken in pieces. And after he did do take brands of iron and join them to his sides, and his bowels which then appeared he did do frot with salt, and so sent him into prison, but our Lord appeared to him the of same night with great light and comforted him much sweetly. And by this great consolation he took to him so good heart that he doubted no torment that they might make him suffer. Then, when Dacian the provost saw that he might not surmount him, he called his enchanter and said to him: I see that these christian people doubt not our torments. The enchanter bound himself, upon his head to be smitten off, if he overcame not his crafts. Then he did take strong venom and meddled it with wine, and made invocation of the names of his false gods, and gave it to S. George to drink. S. George took it and made the sign of the cross on it, and anon drank it without grieving him any thing. Then the enchanter made it more stronger than it was tofore of venom, and gave it him to drink, and it grieved him nothing. When the enchanter saw that, he kneeled down at the feet of S. George and prayed him that he would make him christian. And when Dacian knew that he was become christian he made to smite off his head. And after, on the morn, he made S. George to be set between two wheels, which were full of swords, sharp and cutting on both sides, but anon the wheels were broken and S. George escaped without hurt. And then commanded Dacian that they should put him in a caldron full of molten lead, and when S. George entered therein, by the virtue of our Lord it seemed that he was in a bath well at ease. Then Dacian seeing this began to assuage his ire, and to flatter him by fair words, and said to him: George, the patience of our gods is over great unto thee which hast blasphemed them, and done to them great despite, then fair, and right sweet son, I pray thee that thou return to our law and make sacrifice to the idols, and leave thy folly, and I shall enhance thee to great honour and worship. Then began S. George to smile, and said to him: Wherefore saidst thou not to me thus at the beginning? I am ready to do as thou sayest. Then was Dacian glad and made to cry over all the town that all the people should assemble for to see George make sacrifice which so much had striven there against. Then was the city arrayed and feast kept throughout all the town, and all came to the temple for to see him.

When S. George was on his knees, and they supposed that he would have worshipped the idols, he prayed our Lord God of heaven that he would destroy the temple and the idol in the honour of his name, for to make the people to be converted. And anon the fire descended from heaven and burnt the temple, and the idols, and their priests, and sith the earth opened and swallowed all the cinders and ashes that were left. Then Dacian made him to be brought tofore him, and said to him: What be the evil deeds that thou hast done and also great untruth? Then said to him S. George: Ah, sir, believe it not, but come with me and see how I shall sacrifice. Then said Dacian to him: I see well thy fraud and thy barat, thou wilt make the earth to swallow me, like as thou hast the temple and my gods. Then said S. George: O caitiff, tell me how may thy gods help thee when they may not help themselves! Then was Dacian so angry that he said to his wife: I shall die for anger if I may not surmount and overcome this man. Then said she to him: Evil and cruel tyrant! ne seest thou not the great virtue of the christian people? I said to thee well that thou shouldst not do to them any harm, for their God fighteth for them, and know thou well that I will become christian. Then was Dacian much abashed and said to her: Wilt thou be christian? Then he took her by the hair, and did do beat her cruelly. Then demanded she of S. George: What may I become because I am not christened? Then answered the blessed George: Doubt thee nothing, fair daughter, for thou shalt be baptized in thy blood. Then began she to worship our Lord Jesu Christ, and so she died and went to heaven. On the morn Dacian gave his sentence that S. George should be drawn through all the city, and after, his head should be smitten off. Then made he his prayer to our Lord that all they that desired any boon might get it of our Lord God in his name, and a voice came from heaven which said that it which he had desired was granted; and after he had made his orison his head was smitten off, about the year of our Lord two hundred and eighty-seven. When Dacian went homeward from the place where he was beheaded towards his palace, fire fell down from heaven upon him and burnt him and all his servants.

Gregory of Tours telleth that there were some that bare certain relics of S. George, and came into a certain oratory in a hospital, and on the morning when they should depart they could not move the door till they had left there part of their relics. It is also found in the history of Antioch, that when the christian men went over sea to conquer Jerusalem, that one, a right fair young man, appeared to a priest of the host and counselled him that he should bear with him a little of the relics of S. George. for he was conductor of the battle, and so he did so much that he had some. And when it was so that they had assieged Jerusalem and durst not mount ne go up on the walls for the quarrels and defence of the Saracens, they saw appertly S. George which had white arms with a red cross, that went up tofore them on the walls, and they followed him, and so was Jerusalem taken by his help. And between Jerusalem and port Jaffa, by a town called Ramys, is a chapel of S. George which is now desolate and uncovered, and therein dwell christian Greeks. And in the said chapel lieth the body of S. George, but not the head. And there lie his father and mother and his uncle, not in the chapel but under the wall of the chapel; and the keepers will not suffer pilgrims to come therein, but if they pay two ducats, and therefore come but few therein, but offer without the chapel at an altar. And there is seven years and seven lents of pardon; and the body of S. George lieth in the middle of the quire or choir of the said chapel, and in his tomb is an hole that a man may put in his hand. And when a Saracen, being mad, is brought thither, and if he put his head in the hole he shall anon be made perfectly whole, and have his wit again.

This blessed and holy martyr S. George is patron of this realm of England and the cry of men of war. In the worship of whom is founded the noble order of the garter, and also a noble college in the castle of Windsor by kings of England, in which college is the heart of S. George, which Sigismund, the emperor of Almayne, brought and gave for a great and a precious relique to King Harry the fifth. And also the said Sigismund was a brother of the said garter, and also there is a piece of his head, which college is nobly endowed to the honour and worship of Almighty God and his blessed martyr S. George. Then let us pray unto him that he be special protector and defender of this realm. (The Life of S. George, 58.)

This is a far cry from what we get on a daily basis from the man named Jorge (George) as he blabbers on endlessly each day, finding a whole variety of ways to reaffirm unrepentant sinners in their sins and to celebrate a world that is in the grip of the devil himself.

We need to pray to Saint George to slay the twin dragons of Modernism and Modernity, begging him to help us fight the dragons that attack our own immortal souls each day and that want us to believe that a world that does not honor Christ the King and pay public homage to His Most Immaculate Mother as its Queen, especially by means of state-sponsored Rosary processions, can be a place of refuge and relief.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray us to be determinedto serve Christ the King as He has revealed Himself to us through His true Church and to reject Barabbas no matter how convenient that choice may see.

Isn’t it truly time to pray a Rosary now?

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar, pray for us.

Saint George, pray for us,