Suffer the Children

I don't understand why Americans are opposed to importing other countries' children. Caucasians aren't having babies anymore. They currently make up 70% of the population, but have less than 50% of the babies and we've been in this situation since 2011. It won't change. By 2050, this will be a majority "minority" country even if all immigration stopped today. And the only people who have children are first-generation immigrants. Second-generation has the same birth dearth that the native population has - by the second generation, the American Borg have assimilated them.

The situation is brutally simple: we aren't having enough babies to sustain economic growth. We *HAVE* TO steal other countries' children if we want to maintain the economy we are used to.

That's why no one is really going to stop immigration, ever. The only shocking thing is that we're actually going straight for the kids this time, instead of importing parents and waiting for them to have children, which is what we always used to do.

Screw the countries that are losing the kids. Human beings are the greatest resource any country can have, and we're stripping Central and South American countries of that resource just as quickly as we can. George Will recognizes this, which is why he's four-score FOR the immigration.

What is rather more shocking is that the USCCB hasn't addressed this issue at all. A strong argument can be made that we are actually violating Catholic teaching by importing other countries' children, directly stripping these other countries of their future. Sure, the argument FOR immigration, that we're re-uniting families, is undoubtedly more powerful, but the argument against is not exactly weak.

The more children we take from any country, the more completely destroyed it will be within a generation. Why do you think Russia has outlawed adoptions abroad? They already have a birth dearth that will essentially destroy them in a century. They don't need to hemorrhage any more children. China is in a similar situation. Inside of 50 years, every country in the world will be in this situation.

By stealing children, we are buying time. Sure, the country won't look the same as it did, won't have the same values as it did, but it doesn't look the same now as it did in the 1930s, nor did the 1930s look like the 1870s, and none of these decades looked like 1789. We've had one Constitution but several Americas over the course of the last 200 years. This immigration policy merely assures that we will have at least one America more before the Baby Bust destroys everything.

Creative Minority Fears

Creative Minority Reports has is apparently running scared. Patrick apparently fears the accuracy of what I have to say to him, he deeply fears public chastisement and correction. He told me as much in a private communication to me.

Why?

Well, because he's acting like a Protestant. Protestants proof-text Scripture. He proof-texts the Magisterium, choosing papal quotes without benefit of the context in which they were presented or the audiences to which they were addressed. 

Just as Freemasons try to subtly undermine Church authority, so he attempts the same by pretending that one Pope can be set against another. 

The sedevacantists (i.e., Protestants) LOVE what he is doing. Yes, there is a lesson in this. He is drifting away from the Church and taking a lot of ambivalent Catholics with him. 

The Seal of the Confessional

After reading this article concerning the Louisiana Supreme Court's attempt to jail a priest for refusing to break the seal of the confessional, it occurred to me that people only associate this seal with priests - they fail to associate with lay people. And that is a serious mistake.

Note two pieces of information:

Fr. Bayhi is not accused of any physical or sexual wrongdoing himself, but refuses to confirm whether the girl, who was 12 at the time of the alleged abuse, did confess to him, and what the contents of the alleged confessions were...
In an unusual move, Fr. Bayhi’s diocese — which typically has a policy against commenting on legal cases — released a statement in opposition to the ruling.

“A priest is compelled never to break that seal [of confession],” it says. “Neither is a priest allowed to admit that someone went to confession to him. If necessary, the priest would have to suffer a finding of contempt in a civil court and suffer imprisonment rather than violate his sacred duty…. A priest/confessor who violates the seal of confession incurs an automatic excommunication.”

Note the two elements of the seal of the confessional. A priest not only cannot indicate what sins were confessed, he is not even permitted to indicate that someone went to confession with him.

And lay people are under the same seal. Let us assume, for instance, that through some quirk of remarkably bad luck, I were to hear part or all of someone's confession. I would violate the seal if I were to reveal what I had heard. But I would also violate the seal if I were to indicate that I knew this person had gone to confession at all. And in both cases, I would be subject to the same penalty a priest would be subject to for having broken the seal - automatic excommunication.

Now, let us say I saw Joe Smith in the confessional line. Could I remark on that to someone else? Yes, because I don't necessarily know why he was in line.  Perhaps he only appeared to be in line, but was actually waiting for some event to start. Perhaps he was standing in line to hold a place for someone else. Even if I saw him enter the confessional, I would not necessarily know that he did so in order to confess and receive absolution. Perhaps he and Father had a pre-arranged agreement whereby he was able to receive five minutes of spiritual direction this way, without confession or absolution, because he had no other time in which to arrange it. I don't know.

But insofar as I do know that Joe Smith confessed his sins and received absolution, I am no more permitted to remark on it publicly than any priest would be.  And no priest is permitted to remark on it at all.

Indeed, even speaking in a way that implied I had such knowledge when, in fact, I did not would be a gross violation of Joe's rights as a Catholic. This is between him and Jesus. I am not part of his conversation with God, nor may I pretend that I was.

I cannot say that someone is in a state of grace or not, I cannot publicly imply knowledge of a penitent's reception of absolution. These things are not known by me and I violate the penitent's dignity and the very Truth to pretend that I know either one.

So, let us imagine a hypothetical situation in which a parish staff member was given to understand in some way that someone had gone to confession. Insofar as that parish staff member was given that understanding by a priest, the priest has violated the seal of the confessional. Insofar as that staff member made public his/her understanding, whether actual or implied, of the penitent's reception of absolution, that staff member may well also have violated the seal of the confessional. Insofar as that understanding was made public, both the staff member and the priest responsible for that staff member bear responsibility before the bishop and before God.

Now, we all condemn the sin of child rape. But a priest who commits such a sin is not excommunicated by the very act. True, he is in a state of mortal sin by having knowingly and willfully committed the act, but he is not automatically excommunicated. But breaking the seal of the confessional is a much more heinous sin than even the rape of a child.

Just as a parishioner would be duty-bound to report to the bishop the possibility of impropriety between an ordained man and a child, so much more is a parishioner duty-bound to report the possibility of impropriety concerning the confessional seal.

If I have in any way misunderstood the seal, I would be gladdened to be corrected in the comments. But this is the understanding I was given in my graduate theology training, and this is the understanding every priest I have ever met has communicated to me.

Pray for priests, especially the priests of Louisiana, but also the priests throughout the nation, that they may successfully avoid this most grievous sin. And insofar as any of us laity become aware of the possibility that this sin may have been committed, pray for the laity, that we have the courage to say what needs to be said to the bishop whose responsibility it is to guard the seal of the confessional. For if we stand silent while the confessional seal is being violated, it is worse than if we stood silent while a child was being violated.

Of Fornication and Murder

Traditionalists are at it again. This time they are going crazy because a bishop corrected a priest who compared fornication to murder.

Let's be blunt.
The bishop followed the teaching of Aquinas, the priest did not.

Recall that simple fornication is a sin in significant part because it is opposed to the good of the child that might be born:

Summa Theologiae II-II, 154, 2 

Reply to Objection 4. Simple fornication is contrary to the love of our neighbor, because it is opposed to the good of the child to be born, as we have shown, since it is an act of generation accomplished in a manner disadvantageous to the future child

But, of course, comparing fornication to murder in such a way as to make fornication a sin equal to or greater than murder is explicitly rejected by Thomas himself:

Summa Theologiae II-II, 154, 3

Whether fornication is the most grievous of sins?

On the contrary, Gregory says (Moral. xxxiii, 12) that the sins of the flesh are less grievous than spiritual sins.
I answer that, The gravity of a sin may be measured in two ways, first with regard to the sin in itself, secondly with regard to some accident. The gravity of a sin is measured with regard to the sin itself, by reason of its species, which is determined according to the good to which that sin is opposed. Now fornication is contrary to the good of the child to be born. Wherefore it is a graver sin, as to its species, than those sins which are contrary to external goods, such as theft and the like; while it is less grievous than those which are directly against God, and sins that are injurious to the life of one already born, such as murder. (emphasis added)

This was a commonplace among medieval Christians. This is why Dante places adulterers and fornicators, and all those bound by natural lusts, in the second circle of hell while placing murderers much deeper, in the seventh circle of hell.

If traditionalists had a clue, they would applaud the bishop for following traditional nuances and for correcting a priest who was trying to twist Catholic teaching to suit his own agenda. But, once again, traditionalists seem not to have read done the reading.

So, once again, we have to wonder what is so "traditional" about so many of our celebrated "traditionalists"?