Saving Grace or Enabling Crime?

Catholics like to preen about how wonderful they are because they have the sacraments and sacramental grace, don'cha know. This is particularly the case when it comes to marriage. A Georgetown University study shows that Catholics have a lower divorce rate than the general population. The credit for this fact is given to the sacramental grace of marriage:

“If they are both Catholics and practice the sacraments and pray together, they will grow through every event in their lives,” Meert told the Register. “They also have received an incredible grace through the sacrament of matrimony, a grace that helps them through the difficulties life brings.” 

Now, this is an interesting statement to make, given that the sacramental grace of baptism doesn't seem to provide the same kind of transformative power as the Colorado spokesman has given to marriage. As the chart below, drawn from Pew Research and FBI statistics, illustrates, the grace of baptism is much less likely to have been bestowed upon Asians, yet Asians have a much lower crime rate than the Christian-dominant communities of whites, blacks and Latinos. 

If we follow the theory that grace explains statistics, then baptism seems to instill an interest in committing rape and assault among whites, it instills a predilection for murder in blacks, and assists Latinos in the commission of robbery. Now, one explanation is that whites, blacks and Latinos would be even worse if it were not for their baptisms. No, seriously, I have heard this kind of explanation given in other contexts. But it can get even sillier.

Though Bishop Sheridan says Catholic marriage rates must improve, he suggested that a growing number of Catholic dioceses have made progress with solid marriage-preparation standards and doctrinal teachings that forbid contraception and explain natural family planning (NFP) to engaged couples.

“From everything I have read and heard, NFP really does add to the intimacy of the husband and wife,” Bishop Sheridan explained.

The irony here is that in 2008, even the USCCB admitted that only four percent of Catholic couples used NFP. If Aletia is to be believed, this number had risen to one-fifth of Catholics (20%) by 2013. Meanwhile, the same 2013 Aletia article admitted Catholics (23%) are the most likely of all Christians to have used Plan-B, an abortifacient birth control drug. 

And, of course, the Catholic Church holds that celibacy, a discipline, makes its practitioner objectively holier than marriage, a sacrament. This is an amazing doctrine, given that sacraments are believed to deify the recipient while celibacy doesn't. 

So, what to do with these conflicting messages? When the statistics make a sacrament look good, the happy result obviously is caused by grace. When statistics make a sacrament look bad, the grace connection is studiously ignored. When a Catholic practice, like NFP or celibacy, can be praised by noticing a happy correlation, it is. When the underlying facts call that praise into question, the unfortunate correlation is smothered with pillows. 

It's almost as if they are making this stuff up as they go along. 

Abortion at Nuremberg

In 1945, at the Nuremburg Trials, for the crime of legalizing abortion, we hung Nazis by the neck until they were dead. Legal abortion was numbered among the "crimes against humanity."

Less than thirty years later (1973), we legalized what we had hung Nazis for legalizing. Twenty years after that, the President's wife, Hillary, claimed it was a crime against humanity to keep abortion illegal.

I often use this example in my history classes as a way of illustrating how American policy can flip on a dime.

REFERENCE
Page 1

"The prosecution argued that voluntary abortion was punishable because it was a crime against the unborn child. The prosecution proceeded on the theory that Germany had a duty to afford protection of law to unborn children and that the deliberate failure of high-level officials to do so constituted crimes against humanity and genocide by acts of omission. After summarizing evidence of voluntary abortion policies in its judgment, the Greifelt tribunal FOUND TWO DEFENDANTS GUILTY (emphasis added for the reading-impaired) and one not guilty of forcible abortion and seven not guilty simply of abortion. "

From page 325
"A chart included in Document D-884 and sent to the Gau Staff Office Strasburg, dated May 13, 1944, reported 13 pregnancies, 12 abortions, and 4 children in industrial settings and 14 pregnancies, 3 abortions, and 44 children in agricultural settings.345 Document D-884 also included a more detailed and extensive chart that reported statistics from 39 districts. 346 The chart reported 663 births, 314 pregnancies and 42 abortions.347 Those statistics justifY an inference that the abortions, even if not totally free of some element of duress, were for the most part voluntary in practice as well as in the wording of the policy document. "

From page 340-341
The only two provisions of Hague Convention IV (1907) that had direct relevance to the abortion charges were articles 43 and 46.461 Article 43 had particular relevance with regard to the abortion of children in occupied Poland.462 Article 43 required an dccupying power to enforce the laws of an occupied country unless absolutely prevented463 The indictment alleged that when occupying Poland, the Nazis not only refused to enforce Polish abortion laws, but also prohibited the Poles from enforcing them.464 Article 46 protected "[f]amily honour and rights" including "the lives of persons" and provided a basis for the charges of abortion whether committed in Germany, Poland, or elsewhere.465"

https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1047&context=lusol_fac_pubs

Is God Calling You?

As I tell my sons, in order to be a priest, you have to be willing to cover up the sins of other priests. That's part of the charism of obedience to your bishop.

Remember, the laity are lightbulbs, completely replaceable. All that matters is the opinion of your fellow ordained men. You will work with the priests in your diocese for the rest of your life. Lay staff you will work with, at most, for ten years, often less. Lay staff at a parish are meant to protect the reputation of the pastor. They exist so there is a scapegoat when things go bad. 

Lay staff can be fired, but you are a priest forever, and the bishop can't get rid of you like he can laity. Use the laity as they were meant to be used. Wipe the opposing field with them. When you fire one, just refill the magazine with more of them. They don't mind. 

The parish and the diocese have no safety net for lay people, nor should they. The diocese and the parish exist for priests. When laity leave employment, they generally do not get unemployment insurance because many American dioceses don't pay into that governmental nonsense. Laity, you have the clothes on your back - be happy.

If you can look at yourself every morning, knowing these things, then you are cut out to be a priest.

UPDATE:

Yeah, like I said. Even Vatican employees echo these descriptions: "Workers have decided this action only after all their demands and requests over years were left unanswered," she said."

What If Israel Wanted Hamas to Attack?

Netanyahu gave Hamas over one billion dollars. Soros (who is Jewish) and other Jewish organizations, such as Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow, funded pro-Hamas demonstrations on American college campuses. When you look at the money flow, Hamas is arguably a Jewish-funded terrorist organization.

Think about that for a minute.

Now, Netanyahu explains the payments by saying he wanted to use Hamas as a foil against the Palestinian Liberation Organization. But that doesn't make a tremendous amount of sense. The PLO, along with all other internal political opponents, had been pretty much wiped out of Gaza by Hamas shortly after Hamas took power. 

Now, keep in mind Gaza's 2021 total fertility rate was 3.54 children born/woman. 

On Jan 22, 2024, the Times of Israel reported that Israel's Jewish fertility rate between 2018 and 2022, had dropped from 3.17 to 3.03 children per woman, according to the Taub Center. In Feb, 2024, Haaretz reported Israel's TFR was even lower, at an average of 2.08 children per woman. 

Gaza's 2020 population was 2 million and growing, the Palestinian population in the West Bank is 3 million and growing, while Israel's population was 7.2 million and falling in both raw and relative terms. Israel's population is 72% Jewish, 28% non-Jewish. According to the World Bank, Gaza's population growth rate is among the highest in the world: 3.4 percent in the West Bank and 4.0 percent in Gaza, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates. A full 45 percent of the West Bank population are children under 15 years of age, compared with 50 percent in Gaza. Meanwhile, only 28% of Israel's population is under 15 years of age. The fastest growing Jewish segment in Israel is the Haredi, who are exempt from military service. 

Within a decade, this would bode very ill for Israel. So, what if Israel's whole purpose in paying off Hamas was precisely to provoke Hamas into an attack so Israel would have an excuse to wipe out the growing population in the Gaza Strip?  

Remember, Israeli intelligence, commonly agreed to be among the finest in the world, was apparently oblivious to the hundreds of miles of tunnels being constructed in Gaza with Israeli-approved funding. That same intelligence service deliberately moved two entire commando teams away from the Gaza border just days before the attack. The IDF itself admitted that it had never formulated plans to deal with a surprise attack. 

But, once Hamas attacked and produced the necessary body bags, Israel was suddenly able to justify an overwhelming military response. Did that response include a plan to kill civilians? Given Israeli military attitudes, it certainly is not beyond the pale.

"A booklet published by... the Israeli Army promotes killing civilians encountered in war. "In war, when our forces storm the enemy, they are allowed and even enjoined by the Halakhah to kill even good civilians, that is, civilians who are ostensibly good."

While this booklet was later withdrawn, the very fact that it was published by the IDF Central Command and made publicly available at all speaks volumes about what Israel was prepared to do to a non-Jewish civilian population. As NBC News reported in 2009, attacking and mis-treating non-Jewish civilians is not exactly a new thing for the IDF:

Israel has admitted that in the 1990s, its forensic pathologists harvested organs from dead bodies, including Palestinians, without permission of their families.

The issue emerged with publication of an interview with the then-head of Israel's Abu Kabir forensic institute, Dr. Jehuda Hiss. The interview was conducted in 2000 by an American academic, who released it because of a huge controversy last summer over an allegation by a Swedish newspaper that Israel was killing Palestinians in order to harvest their organs. Israel hotly denied the charge.

Parts of the interview were broadcast on Israel's Channel 2 TV over the weekend. In it, Hiss said, "We started to harvest corneas ... Whatever was done was highly informal. No permission was asked from the family."...

...In a response to the TV report, the Israeli military confirmed that the practice took place. "This activity ended a decade ago and does not happen any longer," the military said in a statement quoted by Channel 2.

America's Christians know that Muslims do not share Christian values, but they often forget that Jews do not share Christian values either. While American conservative news sites take great pains to point out Muslim theological incompatibilities, no one ever takes the time to dissect Jewish theological incompatibilities. It is a an easily verifiable fact that Jewish theology has long held non-Jews to be less than fully human. Any Jewish political or theological leader is certainly aware that Muslim theology requires all Jews to be slaughtered. So, why did Netanyahu fund Hamas while simultaneously removing troops from the border with Gaza, when Hamas' bloodthirsty terrorist  propensities for violence were well-known to all parties?

Jews and Muslims are cousins, both genetically and theologically. Their respective theologies do not share any substantial moral points with Christianity. Despite the 20th century invention of the myth of  Judeo-Christian morality, there is simply no more overlap between the Christian view of the human person and the Jewish view than there is between the Christian view and the Muslim view. Despite Protestant evangelical myths to the contrary, Judaism and Christianity share very little in common. 

Hamas is a blood-thirsty, genocidal organization of rapist-terrorists. But the IDF is not opposed to being a genocidal organization equally willing to kill non-Jewish civilians if there be need. Given the demographics in the Middle East, it might be very easy for Israeli authorities to see a need for genocide in the Gaza Strip. 

Update:

Israel destroyed Christian churches, murdered Christians, but America doesn't care. 

Israeli police officers beat up the families of Hamas hostages. Think about that. Why on earth would you beat up the families of the people being held by Hamas?