Where Sin Abounds

The election of Barack Obama as the next president of the United States could turn out to be outstanding news for the Catholic Church in America. Consider:

1) If Obama is as incompetent as FDR - and from all the signs, he's got FDR handily beat in this area - Obama's economy is certain to enter an extended and deep recession, probably a depression. Unemployment will rise to at least 7%, probably more like 10-12%. This will last at least four years, because we won't be in a position to vote these bozos out for at least that long.

The consequences at the local level?

a) Donations are certain to drop like a rock.
b) Catholic schools will go out of business in droves.

Diocesan and parish staff will disappear. All of this is going to hurt heretical Catholics a lot more than the orthodox. Orthodox Catholics are used to having no resources so it doesn't bother them at all, but without schools and parish religious ed programs to propagate the insanity, heresy won't have the constant nurture it needs to survive.

c) Increase in the Extraordinary Form.
Parishes will need to increase their revenues. Most priest won't want to offer the EF so whoever does it first will suffer less of a decline than the surrounding parishes, because the EF parish will siphon off the most reliable tithers - the orthodox Catholics - from surrounding parishes. The very act of offering the EF changes the priest. We'll see a dramatic decline in liturgical abuse, a dramatic increase in the EF.

2) Socialists always persecute the Church.
The National Socialists (Nazis) set up internment camps for political prisoners, including orthodox priests and nuns. So has virtually every flavor of International Socialism (Communists). Barack Obama has already promised to create an SS look-alike in the form of an internal security force as well-funded and well-armed as the military. Picture the Black Panthers with badges and guns.

Consequences?

a) Bishops found their voices in this election, and they aren't likely to go sit in a corner now. We followed the nonconfrontational "seamless garment" agenda of the homosexual lobby and it didn't work. Look for a LOT more confrontation towards the culture from the bishops, and possibly martyrdom from a few.
b) Only rock-solid priests and deacons are going to survive this purge.

3) Offenses against life will dramatically increase. We've already added tens of millions of Holy Innocents to the rolls of the saints through abortion, now people lose their livelihoods, their houses, their cars, etc., for refusing to perform, sell to, or cooperate in any way with same-sex marriages, abortion, euthanasia, etc.

Consequences?

a) A big upswing in white martyrdom among the laity as well as the episcopal martyrdom already noted above.

b) Pro-life Catholics will be the new Jews. As active Catholics find themselves forced out of the medical field by draconian laws mandating participation in abortion and euthanasia, an underground black-market Catholic medical economy will spring up. We won't be allowed to operate hospitals anymore, but house calls will become more common among Catholics precisely because the Catholic medical professional won't be able to afford to draw attention to himself by setting up a public practice. As long as the Black Panthers don't incarcerate the doctor or the patient, life is good.

Count it all joy, brother.
The Church survived Caligula, Nero, Lenin, Stalin, Che Guevera and Castro. She will also survive Barack "the Butcher of Chicago" Obama. The United States won't survive - she will be turned into a ghastly parody of herself - but the Church will. And that's good enough for me.

And who knows?
Maybe Barack, placed under the enormous pressures of the new job, will finally become a mature adult. Remember, this chastisement is not just for the Church, but for the whole nation. The job may well turn out to be a chastisement for Obama, a way for him to learn how to stop being such an insufferable juvenile and actually live the Christianity he has so often pretended to embrace. Pray God that it is.