Coulter Wars

"[Since 9/11] I am often asked if I still think we should invade their
countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity. The answer is:
Now more than ever!" - Ann Coulter

Over three weeks ago, I added Ann Coulter’s famous remark to my e-mail signature file, thereby placing it in front of several hundred people a week. To date, Mrs. Coulter’s remarks has generated three comments, all negative, and all instructive, though in different ways.

The first remark came from an employee of Library Services Centre of Ontario, Canada. Now librarians (especially Canadian librarians) are notoriously "open-minded," loathe to install anti-pornography filters, always complaining about banned books. But this particular librarian found Ann’s remark to be "offensive and grossly out of line." So, she put me on her banned e-mail list. The irony was absolutely delicious.

The remaining two complaints came from subscribers to Through the Father’s Eyes, a free once-a-week e-mail list that provides early Christian commentary on the Sunday Gospel readings. Two men were upset with the quote.

The first asserted: "As a Catholic living in a Muslim Country , I have to say I take offence immediately … you shouldn't go around killing peoples leaders just because you think their religion is wrong. Jesus NEVER intented any of us to do so. Right and left have no bearing in Christianity, Jesus never asked us to kill leaders, let's leave political comments where they should be. Statements like that not only serve in widening the gap between the Muslim world and the west, but also between the Liberal and Conservatives of America (a country already deeply divided). (sic)"

The statements embody a lot of the muddied thinking popular today when it comes to Islam. I will leave the comment on politics to another essay and begin instead by pointing out that no one advocates killing Muslim leaders simply because Muslim faith is erroneous. After all, Hindu, Buddhist, pantheist and most Christian faiths are each wrong to some degree too. Rather, killing Muslim leaders becomes palatable precisely because of how the Muslims are wrong.

Now, it is immediately necessary to make a distinction. What kind of Muslims are we talking about here? There are essentially two kinds: good Muslims who do their best to be orthodox and follow all the precepts of their faith (whether Sunni, Shiite, etc.), and bad Muslims who do not follow all Muslim precepts, but who instead seek some kind of accommodation with the larger world. No one has a quarrel with bad Muslims. It is the good Muslims that pose the problems.

Good Muslims
Like Communism, Catholicism and democracy, good Muslims have a consistent world-view. Like Communists, Catholics and Americans, good Muslims intend their version of the law to be the standard of law throughout the world and they work towards imposing it upon the world.

Unfortunately, sharia, Muslim religious law, is not acceptable to Christian democracy. Sharia allows children to be whipped to death for breaking Ramadan fast, women to be beaten to death by their husbands for the smallest infraction, marriage by the age of six is alright, sex with a child of nine is fine, adoption is illegal, prostitution to service soldiers is legal, polygamy is acceptable, a husband can invoke divorce by simply by repeating the word "divorce" three times. A woman’s testimony in court is not equal to a man’s, she can be stoned to death for being raped, she can be raped in order to punish her relatives for their infractions. Slavery is legal (the very word "Islam" means "submit"), slave armies were and are common under Islam, and male slaves are not uncommonly completely castrated, with every vestige of external genitalia cut away. Women, slave or free, are likewise often subjected to partial or complete removal of external genitalia.

These are just some of the highlights. There are more. Any group who intends to impose that kind of law on the rest of the world has to be stopped.

While it is true that right and left have no bearing on Christianity, right and wrong most certainly do. Jesus did not cry out for the deaths of any religious leaders, but neither did He condemn the crucifixions that occurred regularly under Roman rule. That is, He apparently saw nothing wrong when the state took necessary steps to protect itself from outside attack. Islam is precisely an outside attack on both democracy and Christianity. Unfortunately, this makes good Muslims the threat: criminals who must either be converted from their worldview or be removed.

The Aztecs practiced human sacrifice. The Mormons practiced polygamy. Muslims practice sharia. Contrary to popular opinion, the U.S. Government cannot and does not allow every form of religious expression to exist. Aztec worship has never been practiced here, Mormons had to seriously modify their religious views to survive as a religion, and the Muslim faith cannot be practiced here either.

Now, at this point, one might interpose an objection. On what grounds would we call Osama bin Laden a "good Muslim" who is attempting to follow the precepts of Islam faithfully, while calling others "bad Muslims" or accomodationists? The question is a fair one.

Jesus vs. Mohammed
In Christianity, every Christian believer models his life on Christ. In Islam, every Muslim models his life on Mohammed. On that, all are agreed. Mohammed was the first ruler and interpreter of Islam. He is the one who married a six year old, had sex with her when she was nine, advocated beating wives, allowed his henchmen to beat their own wives to death and rewarded them with more wives after. Subsequently, his role of interpretation and rule over Islam fell to the caliphs. So, just as we must look at historical Christendom to help us understand what Christian Faith teaches, so we must look at historical Islam to determine what Islam is.

The first thirty leaders of Christendom, the popes, were all martyred for the Faith. The first dozen caliphs were all assassinated. Indeed, the word "assassin" was invented by the Muslims. This is informative. Christianity spread through the Roman Empire through proclamation and martyrdom. Islam spread through North Africa and Spain primarily through the sword. While we can point to many historical instances of Christians who committed crimes against both God and man, we can also demonstrate that these crimes were in contravention to Christian teaching. With Islam, the reverse is true.

Indeed, history shows us this much: when Christians disobey Christian teaching, people suffer and die. When Muslims disobey Muslim teaching, people live.

Today, the office of caliph is empty and there is no one to fill it. Thus, anyone who says that Osama bin Laden is not following true Islam is saying this on his own authority, which is to say, on no authority at all. Osama is as authentically Muslim as any number of his predecessors in jihad. Whatever one may wish to say of him, this cannot be denied.

So, the divide between liberal and conservative, between Muslims and the rest of the world, is not a divide that can be bridged. There can be no accommodation between a faith that models itself on adoption and monogamy (Christianity) and a faith that models itself on slavery and polygamy.

The Second Objection
And this is the beginning of the answer to the second man’s objection. When a priest from Uraguay asserted that conversion cannot be forced, that it must be based on love and not war, he was partially correct.
It is true that conversion cannot be forced. Catholic Faith, for instance, has always held a forced baptism to be no baptism at all. However, the proposed dichotomy between love and war is simply false.

"God chastises those whom He loves" says the letter to the Hebrews, and it makes for some interesting conclusions. The Christ who wielded a bullwhip in the Temple, who called Jewish leaders "blind guides," "den of vipers," and "hypocrites," the Christ who said to them, "Who told YOU that you could escape from the coming destruction?" and who predicted the total destruction of both the Temple and Jerusalem, this is not someone who seems averse to war. Indeed, He asserted that He would bring a war like no other, that because of Him father and son would oppose one another, mother and daughter combat one another, He said He came into the world to bring not peace, but the sword.

When Christ whipped those men, He did it because He loved them. One could easily argue that He loved the Jewish leaders more than He did the Jewish population precisely because He chastised them more than anyone else. Similarly, He loved the Jewish population more than the Gentiles because that population was more thoroughly chastised than any Gentile.

When war is waged in order to protect the innocent and turn the wicked from their ways, it is an expression of love. That is why St. Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians, could demand a sinner be turned out of the community, turned over to Satan for the destruction of his flesh so that his soul might be saved on the last day. This kind of language is precisely the kind of language the earliest Christians used constantly in explaining the Gospels. They understood that war is necessary because love sometimes requires it.

That understanding has never left Catholic Faith. G. K. Chesterton quotes St. Louis, who followed St. Paul one thousand years later, as saying, "I must either convince the pagan (Muslim) of the rightness of Catholic Faith or thrust my sword through his body as far as it will go." St. Louis was just paraphrasing St. Paul. Ann Coulter simply repeats the wisdom of both. History demonstrates the problem: while Islam and Christendom are both in the world, there will be war.

Economics 101

Killing your customer is generally not good for business. It is amazing how many people don’t understand this.

Take, for instance, the French. The November 24th issue of Medical News Today reports on French abortion advocates who argue that French women encounter many obstacles when seeking an abortion. Abortion units have closed in 40% of private clinics in Paris for financial reasons and the number of doctors willing to do abortions is decreasing. According to certain lights, this is a Bad Thing. What Medical News Today failed to point out was the obvious: France has a total fertility rate of 1.9. Nations require a TFR of 2.1 just to keep from depopulating itself through natural death. It apparently has not occurred to them that this may have some small bearing on the availability of abortion.

It is, perhaps, picayune to point out niggling details, but medical experts agree it is extremely difficult to abort a fetus that has never been conceived. Given that the French are barely conceiving any children at all, it is hardly surprising to discover that the demand for abortion services is not what it once was.

Similarly, leading scientists have, through rigourous double-blind studies, almost conclusively demonstrated that it is impossible to perform an abortion on a woman who doesn’t exist. Put another way, every successful abortion kills a potential client – either a man who might otherwise impregnate a woman or a woman who might otherwise be impregnated. The problem reminds one of the old joke from the popular television show M*A*S*H. When an officer remarked he could do anything in the line of duty, up to and including committing suicide, his opponent replied, "If there were more people like you, there would be less people like you."

Contraception and abortion work with exactly that mindset. If either is widely available, its use is eventually self-limiting. That little boy who was never conceived will likewise never use a condom. That little girl who was never birthed will never grow up to ask for an abortion. Thus, as the abortion clinics decimate their way through the population – not quite a fair word, since clinics kill one in three, not one in ten – they eventually find their client base drops. Now, in order to stay in business, they need to drum up more business. If they are successful in drumming up more business, they will depress their own business even further. The process is simply ravenous.

But it is actually worse than that. Contracepters and abortionists are, in this sense, like a slow-release neutron bomb. They not only destroy their own business, they destroy every business near their own. After all, when someone is contracepted or aborted out of existence, it isn’t just the abortionist who permanently loses a potential customer. Every other business in the country permanently loses that customer as well. Do this often enough and it likely will erode the bottom line.

It is, of course, well-known that Democrats and Republicans hold wildly different positions on this issue. Few people stop to consider why. The contemplation is instructive.

Clearly, capitalists with a long-term view of wealth accumulation like neither contraception nor abortion. Annihilating customers is bad for business. But, from a socialist perspective, there is no particular downside to death. Killing customers cannot hurt the socialist state because the socialist state has no customers. It has only citizens, who each live in order to serve the whole, to serve the state. So, in a state that finds it difficult to feed and clothe people under even the best of conditions, the annihilation of citizens is actually a positive good. The remaining citizens will fare better. Only capitalist societies would be harmed by these practices, since contraception and abortion would reduce the number of workers the capitalists can exploit.

That is why Russia, on November 18, 1920, became the first country to legalize abortion. Lenin saw it as a tool to keep the kulaks down. Japan legalized abortion in 1948 as the Cold War began, while the occupied countries of Eastern Europe did so in the 1950s as the USSR tightened its death grip on those states.

Only with the spreading of socialism and the intensification of the Cold War through the 1960’s and 70’s did Europe and America legalize the practice, and it was largely through an imposition by idealogues. When we look at the major proponents of legal abortion in the United States, we find a roll call of prominent socialists. Betty Friedan joined the Communist party in 1948, Gloria Steinem served as honorary chair of the Democratic Socialists of America, Patricia Ireland’s autobiography, What Women Want, details her support for the Communist party and her participation in Miami’s pro-Communist rallies. Conversely, when we look at the major proponents of capitalism, men like Ronald Reagan, John Wayne and George Bush, we find them all opposed.

When two Muslims killed civilians with a high-powered rifle from the trunk of a car in the Washington D.C. area a few years ago, the nation was aghast. It was clearly seen as a terrorist attack, an attack on our way of life. However, if they had been employed as abortionists, they would have been able to kill a lot more Americans and they would have had an exponentially more negative effect on the American way of life. Best of all, they would have been immune from prosecution, as our courts and media protect their right to kill future producers, consumers and the American economy entire.

It is said that we need to separate Church and state, that arguments based in religion have no basis in American politics. Fine. Let us enter the debate from a purely secular political perspective. Abortion attacks the basis of capitalism, it attempts to impose a socialist world-view upon Americans. It is advocated by the socialists precisely because the socialists understand that big business cannot continue in business if enough of its customers are killed. The socialists may have lost the Cold War, but as the world population inexorably ages, they are clearly winning the Demographic War.

Condi Rice and the Democrats

Selective memories produce odd takes on reality. Consider people like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton or Barack Obama, for instance. When we hear from these leaders and leaders like them, we hear them insist that blacks are held down by prejudice. Their evidence? Well, they personally remember prejudice when they were growing up in the 1950’s or 1960’s. And they will go back even farther, pointing to the history of black slavery common in America for the first century of our history. They will even point to the founding of the country, recalling the fact that many of the Founding Fathers, men of the Enlightenment like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, kept slaves.

But, while they remember these things, they fail to remember other things. The Republicans, for instance, were founded in part on the abolition of slavery while the Democrat Party was the party that supported the ‘peculiar institution.’ How many times did we hear about that in the recent campaign? In the last thirty years?
Similarly, consider the Enlightenment slave-owner, Thomas Jefferson, the man who came up with the idea of the separation of Church and State. It is interesting that the slave-holding party cleaves fiercely to this exercise of his rationalism.

What provokes this line of thought is the recent outpouring of silence from black leaders concerning Condoleezza Rice. They are not happy that she succeeds Colin Powell. Why not? Well, that isn’t entirely clear. They insist it isn’t because of her politics. Rather, it is something else, but they can’t agree on what. She is too willing to support Bush policies. She is an Aunt Jemimah, an Oreo. She doesn’t support the real interests and values of the black community, you see.

Interesting charges. But in order to see if this is true, we must first discover what the values of the black community are, right? So, let’s consider the values of the black community.

53% of the black community opposes gay marriage, 60% support school vouchers. 56% of blacks oppose abortion, 20% oppose abortion under any circumstances – a much higher percentage than the white community.

Once we compare the actual values of the black community with the values of black leaders, we see America’s black "leaders" are diametrically opposed to the values of the larger black community. However, these same black leaders do hold values that are in perfect accord with white Democrats.

After all, white Democrats support abortion and gay marriage while opposing school vouchers. Nearly 80% of abortion clinics (almost all run by white Democrats) are located in black communities. Due to the assiduous attention white Democrats give to the black community, blacks account for 36% of all abortions while making up only 14% of the maternal population. Roughly 15 million blacks, two out of every three black babies, have been killed through abortion since 1973.

White Democrats consistently support a style of welfare that destroys the black family while opposing any attempt to restore family integrity. Their recent, rabid support of gay marriage and civil union merely polishes the apple. Likewise, they consistently oppose any attempt to help blacks achieve a decent education through school vouchers. Private schools are fine for the (white) children of party leaders, but definitely not acceptable for the children of the blacks who vote these leaders into power.

Barack Obama, whose father is not an American black, is a perfect example of this discord between black leader and black community. A pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage, anti-voucher Democrat whose own children are sent to private schools, he matches the interests of the white Democrat much more completely than he does the American black community.

The conclusion is obvious: individual black leaders sold out their communities in order to amass personal power. This is the real source of opposition to Condi Rice. White Democrats fear that she's not thrilled about being a water-girl for functionally racist Democrats. Colin Powell, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Barack Obama and the rest are demonstrably fine with the idea. Condi cannot be trusted to "do the right thing. "

Years ago, historians used to talk about "self-hating Jews." Now that the Jewish population has essentially aborted itself out of existence, the focus has moved to "self-hating blacks." Since blacks are aborting themselves out of existence, the label will eventually shift to some other minority that follows white Democrat ideas, as long as that minority exterminates itself so that its putative leadership can maintain a foot in the doors of white Democrat power.

Like American Indians (the vast majority of whom are sterilized), Protestants and Jews, the American black population are being swept away by the demographics. It is a great pity. The black community was once a vibrant contributor to American society. It has squandered its inheritance in a wild attempt to purchase respectability from the white Democrats on Democrat terms.

This is, perhaps, why the Democrats are such fervent supporters of Yassir Arafat and the larger Palestinian leadership community. While very rarely noted in the press, diligent researchers will discover the Palestinians express no particular love for Jews. Indeed, the Palestinian leadership has consistently maintained that Israel and all its Jews must be annihilated. Palestinians are, perhaps, less subtle than the Democrats, but we must focus on the goals here. Democrats recognize a kindred spirit in Arafat and company.
In both cases, it is considered good form for the opposition leadership to sell out their communities in exchange for money and an increase in personal power. But, unlike most of the American black leadership, Israeli politicians seem unwilling to do this. Thus, American Democrats feel towards the Israelis what they feel towards Condi Rice. Any politician that shows any reluctance in exterminating the community he or she represents in exchange for personal perquisites cannot be trusted. The world must be made safe for Democrats.

Let's Talk About Sex

Many Christians have taken offense at Hollywood’s newest movie, Kinsey: Let’s Talk About Sex. It is, they say, yet another sign of West Coast degeneracy, immorality and basic, well… yuckiness. Oddly, few Christians have considered another way to interpret the facts: Christians are the single biggest reason movies like Kinsey get released.

That may seem an odd statement, but it isn’t – it is simply a statement of the facts. In order to see why this is true, we have to remember a few things about both God and man. God didn’t need to create mankind. We are extraneous to God, unnecessary, we are not needed. If we exist at all, it is only because God chose to bring us into existence for our own sake: "The key of love opened the hand of God and creation sprang forth," as Aquinas once said.

What We Need But this also tells us something about mankind. We are not able to exist apart from God. We need Him, we need to know Him, or we are not complete. "Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee, O Lord," said Augustine, and he was very much understating the case. Because we are made for God, anything less than God in our lives creates a dissonance that is nearly impossible to bear. If you have ever seen an injured or ill person thrash uncontrollably upon his sickbed, you have seen an image of how human persons react to the inability to perceive or understand God’s presence in their lives.

Sexuality lies at the heart of the human person, it is in many ways the defining characteristic of each person, and God intended it to be so. "God created man in His own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female He created them." Mankind is defined first by maleness and femaleness – sexual identity. The first divine command strikes at the heart of sexuality, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it." The first lack in Adam’s life was the lack of Eve. Upon meeting her, the first thing said about the couple was that a man cleaves to his wife and they become one flesh.

Human sexuality permeates the creation accounts. Why? Because God is the source of all life, and we image Him. Our ability to participate in the creation of immortal persons, that is, our ability to pro-create, is the pre-eminent natural way through which we image God. We are like God because He allows us to participate in doing what He does: create immortal persons.

Sex - a misdemeanor: the more you miss, da’ meaner you get Now, for a variety of reasons, very few Christians spend a lot of time meditating on human sexuality. Why that's true is an essay in itself, but we shall leave that aside for the moment and simply concentrate on the result. Because Christians do not think about sex, do not discuss sex, most Christians do not clearly understand the role of human sexuality in God’s plan. But Scripture itself recognizes the centrality of human sexuality to understanding God and His purpose in our lives. This creates an immediate dissonance.

We need to understand human sexuality. We don’t. Thus, secular or Christian, we thrash.

You see, adults need an adult understanding of themselves and of God in order to make it through the day. Secular atheists don’t have it. Unfortunately, too many Christians do not have more than a child’s grasp either, so they aren’t much better off than the atheists.

Now, why is that? Well, children have neither the context nor the capabilities to discuss human sexuality in adult terms. Understandable. Adult terminology and concepts should not be forced upon them. Christians understand this, so they respond by avoiding the topic entirely when educating children in the Faith.

Unfortunately, most children never receive adult instruction in the Faith. As a result, they enter adulthood under the mistaken impression that they are fully prepared to live adult lives when, in fact, they are not. Very few businesses would hire an adult with eighth-grade math skills to be their accountant, yet most adults are perfectly willing to try to live an adult life with eighth-grade Faith skills. Whether we are talking about the national economy or the divine economy, a population with only an eighth-grade level of mastery guarantees nothing but failure.

So Christians, who are supposed to proclaim the Gospel, are not able to do so in an adult way. We can’t address the leading adult concern, we cannot provide sensible adult reasons that explain why we should live out our own sexuality one way as opposed to another.

Don’t Make Them Angry Secular society needs to understand human sexuality. They know in their hearts that Christians should be able to explain it. When we can’t, they get angry with us. Very angry. Again, it is understandable.

Precisely because Christians are inarticulate when it comes to sex, we become extremely dangerous elements in secular society. We are actually stumbling blocks to the proclamation of the Gospel precisely because our incompetence in discussing sex in an adult way makes us the worst possible role models.

In that sense, the Kinsey movie just highlights a pre-existing problem. Look at the five most popular novels in the last five years. What's the big name on the list? Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code. Now, Mr. Brown’s historical research was terribly, viciously wrong, but nobody cared. It was making sense of sex. Virtually none of his Christian opponents seem to understand what he did in that book.

All of us attacked Dan Brown for his numerous historical inaccuracies, but those inaccuracies were throw-away lines for him. His lousy history was just the delivery system for an articulate philosophy. Throughout his book, Brown insists on three things: (1) marriage is holy, (2) sex is holy and (3) women are to be treated as images of God. The whole book is spent emphasizing and re-emphasizing those three points.

He mis-represented Christ’s sex life so he could talk about adult sex lives. Like most of secular society, he does not believe Christians have anything useful to say about sex. So, he simply substituted pagan terms for three Christian concepts. He didn't speak of the sacredness of marriage, he used an Egyptian pagan term, Hieros Gamos. He extolled pagan goddess worship (ritualized sex), he insisted Jesus was married all in order to prove sex is holy. Instead of saying women are made in the image and likeness of God, he used pagan terminology: they are goddesses. He insisted that 'Christians think sex is dirty' to justify this paganized wording.

These three facts - holy sex, holy marriage, women are to be treated as holy - made his book tremendously popular because these three facts are true. They are, in fact, the only true things the secular culture has said about sex in the last forty years.

But how many Christians used The Da Vinci Code to talk about sex and Christianity? None of us did. Instead, we spent all our time on debunking Mr. Brown’s atrocious historical research. We attacked his arguments and completely ignored his point, we won the battles and lost the war. We missed the chance to discuss what everyone wants to know: how do I correctly use my sexuality?

Yet Another Chance With the Kinsey movie, God in His goodness has given us another chance. We have the same opportunity here that we had with Dan Brown. It's even the same story line - the secular world omits and distorts the actual history in order to drive a secular philosophical discussion of sexuality. This discussion is framed in an anti-Christian context because, as everyone knows, Christians are immature idiots on sexual matters.

As long as the adult Christian message on sex is not proclaimed, we will keep getting Dan Brown in our bookstores and Alfred Kinsey in our movie theatres. If we don't talk about sex, someone else will. Sex is vitally important to adults. It has got to make sense. The secular culture can't make sense of it - everyone knows that. But the secular culture is going to keep trying, and keep getting it wrong, until they hear a sensible Christian rendition of the message. Christianity has focused for far too long on teaching children. We have lost the ability to talk about adult issues to adults. If we don't regain that ability, we will not break the back of this sex-drenched culture.

So, how do we get that ability? The best way to prepare to discuss sexuality from a Christian perspective is to study what is popularly called the ‘Theology of the Body.’ It is an analysis of Scripture, of Genesis 1 and 2, of the Song of Songs and similar passages, from the perspective of two millenia of Christian experts and mystics, people like Augustine, John Chrysostom, John of the Cross and others. Every Christian who studies Scripture and sexuality in the light of these great teachers, any Christian who begins to understand the basics of the ‘Theology of the Body’ finds their relationship with God transformed. Christians find themselves able to talk about human sexuality in an extraordinarily powerful way, a way that converts the pagan to the Gospel message.

Our culture is awash in sexual imagery and sex as a commodity. This culture abuses who we are as persons. But precisely because sin is so rampant, precisely because the world is so jaded, precisely because the thrashing is so great, the healing balm of grace is even more incredibly powerful. That’s what St. Paul meant when he said, ‘where sin abounds, grace abounds more.’ We have to make people aware of the God’s positive vision of sexuality so that they can implement that divine vision in their own lives. The Da Vinci Code, the Kinsey movie, these are marvelous opportunities for us. We shouldn’t waste them.

Lesson Plans

Political pundits, take note. The USCCB is meeting in just a few days and the participants will have several new items on their agenda. Two items of note include the approval of a first-ever national catechism for adults and the decision to join a new national ecumenical association called Christian Churches Together. When these two items are considered together with another item that does not seem to be on the agenda, we will catch a glimpse of the serious problems the USCCB has. How these items are handled will directly affect American politics.

This news, you see, does not come to us in a vacuum. The Catholic Church in America is a church in schism. As most people know, a few U.S. bishops deny pro-abortion politicians the Eucharist. A larger group warns pro-abortion politicians to avoid approaching the Eucharist. A still larger group sees no problems with giving the Eucharist to politicians who support abortion.

But this should be no surprise. The lay review board, a board which has no standing in canon law, but which is meant to oversee the bishops’ sexual abuse policies, was not only constituted into existence with three pro-abortion members (Leon Panetta, Robert Bennett and Pamela Hayes), but at least one of those members is apparently being retained.

Now, to be fair, the promotion to the panel of pro-abortion figures is not entirely the fault of the bishops. Even a bishop as marvelously staunch a pro-life advocate as Archbishop Burke, formerly of La Crosse, Wisconsin, apparently entertained a pro-abortion lawyer on his staff unawares. This embarrassing revelation became clear only in the last few weeks, as the diocese of La Crosse became one of the few US dioceses that prohibited the Catholic Answers voting guide into its parishes, on the advice of that self-same pro-abortion lawyer. Similarly, over the summer, at least one employee of the USCCB spent his free time running a website that contained explicit support for abortion.

It is a bishop’s prerogative to handle personnel matters as he sees fit. For instance, when Marc Balistrieri, the canon lawyer and Los Angeles chancery official, began his heresy lawsuit against Senator Kerry, Cardinal Mahoney fired him. Similarly, the pro-abortion USCCB official found himself a new job within a few weeks of the revelations about him. And, though Archbishop Burke did not have the opportunity to demonstrate how he would deal with a pro-abortion figure on the La Crosse diocesan staff, it seems unlikely that he would have kept him in employment.

In each of these cases, the bishops in question were initially unaware of their employee’s activities. Once these activities were discovered, the employees were let go. So, we know that canon lawyers have no business exercising their rights as Catholics in Los Angeles, and we also know supporters of abortion at the USCCB eventually find themselves unemployed.

But here is the puzzling thing. Leon Panetta’s pro-abortion record was not exactly hidden under a bushel basket, yet he was appointed and kept on for over a year. Now that Pamela Hayes has revealed her pro-abortion bias, and essentially taunted the Catholic bishops about it, what will the bishops do? Balistrieri got fired because his lawsuit undermined and underlined his bishop’s indifference to pro-abortion politicians. Generally speaking, bishops do not take well to being taunted. Pamela Hayes is the agenda item that is not on the agenda, and the answer to the problem she poses will say quite a bit more than meets the eye.

You see, the USCCB is split between post-Vatican II bishops who are material heretics versus bishops who are still fully orthodox. The heretical bishops are the ones who aren’t particularly interested in promoting priestly vocations. They see the role of the priesthood fading away as the laity take over essentially all leadership roles in the Church. In other words, they see the Catholic Church in America devolving into Protestant anarchy as a positive good, an empowerment long overdue. Further, they agree with the Protestant idea that religion is something private, something apart from politics.

The orthodox bishops, on the other hand, still hew to the hierarchy of the Kingdom, the idea that the King has stewards He ordained. They understand that faith cannot be separated from politics.

The establishment of the lay review board was essentially the triumph of the heretics over the orthodox. The sexual abuse crisis played into the hands of the heretics, "forcing" the fence-sitter bishops into supporting the creation of the lay review board, the triumph of laity over episcopacy. Now, ironically, the heretics had created the sex abuse crisis through their inaction. Because their understanding of both sin and human sexuality is radically impoverished, these bishops have no problem with abortion and were quite willing to allow pro-abortion figures to sit on the self-same lay review board that their own failures had "forced" into existence. Hayes' comments are a stick in the eye of orthodox bishops, and the heretics know it.
But this conference will lay everyone’s cards on the table. The Holy Father has already pointed out that only those Christian communities with valid apostolic succession can properly be called "churches." If the communities do not have valid apostolic succession, they are not churches. They are – at most – ecclesial communities.

Thus the decision on Christian Churches Together is of pivotal importance. If the USCCB chooses to join the group, it will do so at the expense of properly recognizing apostolic succession. That is, it will be a win for the heretics, a win of roughly the same magnitude as the establishment of the pro-abortion lay review board on sexual abuse. Similarly, the content of the adult catechism will be a strong indicator of who has the upper hand – the heterodox or the orthodox.

Political pundits who want to predict how the Catholic vote will break four years from now need to understand the importance of these three issues at the November meeting. If Pamela Hayes is gone from the lay review board in six months, the orthodox bishops are growing stronger. If the American catechism is orthodox, if the USCCB decides not to officially join Christian Churches Together, the orthodox bishops are growing stronger. The more orthodox the bishops, the more energized and the more enlarged the orthodox Catholic base will be.

Now, some might point to the recent book on Catholic political participation in America and conclude that the entire premise of this essay is founded on a canard. After all, it can be shown that Catholic political participation as a whole is essentially indistinguishable from the rest of the general population and always has been.

True. But that is largely because American Catholic bishops have, since the founding of this country, never done their job. Their job is to form adults in the Faith. This has never happened. Instead, American bishops spent the last century attempting to form children and largely ignored the adults. Indeed, the very first catechism Catholics ever saw from American bishops was the Baltimore Catechism, written for children, not adults.

That is precisely why this adult catechism – the first this country has ever seen - is, in many ways, as tremendous an event for American Catholics as the publication of the 1987 Roman Catechism was for the universal Church. As long as the content is not openly heretical, the existence of an adult catechism for Americans is earth-shattering. American bishops are finally figuring out what their job is. Once Catholic adults are consistently formed in the Faith, the Democrat party will either become pro-life, or it will cease to exist. Forming adult Catholics will take more than four years, but political pundits need to understand what is at stake this November. We may soon begin forming the Catholic voting bloc that we have talked about for two centuries.

The New Prohibition

Contrary to predictions I made earlier this year, all eleven states considering a constitutional amendment on gay marriage passed their bans, including Oregon, a state heavily targeted by gay activists. It appears I was wrong on the connection between the contraceptive mentality and the acceptance of homosexual behaviour.

Or was I?

You see, while Americans in general opposed same-sex marriage 61% to 34%, the 18-29 age bracket supported gay marriage or civil unions 56 to 40%.

Why is this important? Two reasons.

College: The Fountain of Knowledge Where Students Go to Drink
First, the 18-29 bracket tends to be the dog that doesn’t bark in the election process. We have thirty years of experience demonstrating that young people tend not to vote. It doesn’t matter how many young people are registered to do so, they simply can’t be bothered, and it’s hard to blame them.

After all, it takes time out of their day and they have no particular stake in the outcome of any election. College students don’t have much in the way of bank accounts nor do they own much private property, so taxes aren’t an enormous concern. They aren’t raising children, so they aren’t concerned about the quality of their neighborhood or the quality of any school, apart from the one they attend. They aren’t being actively drafted and –at least in America - terrorists don’t tend to blow up university libraries or fast food joints, so young people aren’t particularly concerned about international affairs. Whoever is in office today will be up for election again or retired by the time they get settled in their own job and start building their life in such a way that they might be seriously impacted by the political process. They have no compelling reason to vote.
Second, we know that college radicalizes people. 72% of high school students say abortion is morally wrong. Of women who do not go on to college, 37% support abortion. But college changes attitudes. 73% of women with a college education support abortion.

So, the ones who most supported gay marriage were also the ones least likely to vote.

The Factors to Victory
We have won eleven victories (nine in states that voted for George Bush), but how long will it last? Remember Prohibition. It was successfully passed as well, and not just at the state level. It was repealed only when Americans decided the social unrest it caused was not worth the price of having the law.

This is useful to keep in mind. After all, this campaign had a higher level of vituperation and violence than any in recent memory. America is not just at war with terrorism, she is at war with herself.

We could point to several facts and trends in an attempt to divine the future. One fact: that same age cohort, the 18-29 group, is more pro-life than ever. A decade ago, 67% of people aged 18-29 were pro-abortion. Now it’s 54% - still a majority, but also the lowest majority since 1979.

A second fact: This nation will not be majority Protestant at the next election. Mainline Protestant sects are rapidly shrinking while atheism and agnosticism is at historic highs and on the rise. Church attendance has been dropping since 1992 among both men and women and churches are more expensive to operate than ever, while the population of pastors is also aging. This matters deeply. This year, forty-two percent of the population attends church regularly. Sixty-one percent of that population voted for George Bush. Fourteen percent of the population never attends church. Sixty-two percent of that population went for John Kerry.

A third fact: red states tend to grow in population, blue states tend to decline. There are several reasons for this. Blue states tend to support abortion and supporters of legal abortion tend to have smaller families. Red states tend to have more favorable economic conditions, so more people emigrate to them to find jobs and housing.

A fourth fact: The Hispanic population is increasing and may well be the largest minority in America by the next election. Most Latinos want bans on gay marriage and this population is increasingly pro-life. The massive illegal immigration into the country has historically been a Democratic advantage, but the gay marriage issue and other cultural issues could very easily become the fulcrum upon which the Republican party levers that population to their side.

The question teeters on precisely how these competing waves interact, which parts crest during the elections two years, four years, eight years from now. Will rising atheism swamp cultural Christianity? Or will the influx of Hispanics dampen or totally eradicate atheism’s growing popularity? But the best predictor to victory this year was church attendance and Hispanics are less likely to attend church services than either blacks or whites. Can the decline in church attendance be reversed?

The Future
Possibly. The percentage of the population attending church services today is a dramatic decline from 1992, but it matches the percentage that attended during the early 1980s. The 1980’s saw a dramatic increase in church attendance, the 1990’s saw a dramatic decrease.

So, how will it play out? Will those in support of the Democrat agenda of legal homosexual marriage and legal abortion attempt to emulate the Prohibition reversal by attempting to instigate large-scale social upheaval? Those who remember groups like the Weather Underground and the Black Panthers in the 1970’s will also remember that Hillary Clinton and other leaders in today’s Democrat party were instrumental in defending them. Certainly, these leaders will not repeat the mistakes of their youth – they have grown older and wiser. They have also grown more calculating. Colder.

How will the population respond? We clearly no longer live in the America of the 1970’s. The theological anarchism of protestant thought is slowly receding from the scene. Their insistence on conserving a specific culture has saved this day, but how much longer can that grasp be maintained? Protestants passed the Comstock laws outlawing contraception in the 1890’s, but Protestants embraced contraception so fervently in the mid-1900’s that the Comstock laws were overturned by 1973 and abortion legalized. With that break, homosexual rights began to make itself a public force.

We won today, but how long will the victory last? How many churches will still be transmitting the culture in four years? Who will take the place of the Protestant majority?

The fight is not over. It is barely begun.

The Doors, the Doors!

In the Catholic Byzantine rite, immediately before the priest consecrates the offering, the deacon proclaims, "The doors, the doors! Let us attend in wisdom!" With those words, the doors of the iconostasis are shut. The closing of the doors not only transforms the altar area into an image of Mary’s virginal womb, so that the presence of Jesus might enter into the Bride of the Christ as He did two millenia ago, it also serves a rather practical purpose. It keeps the riff-raff out. 

 Riff-raff are always trying to get in, as any good bishop knows. Take St. Ambrose, for instance. Though Emperor Theodosious and St. Ambrose, the great bishop who taught St. Augustine, were on close terms, St. Ambrose had strict standards. Now, keep in mind that Theodosius was a good Catholic. He had called the second council of Constantinople in order to solve the problem Arian heresy. He was responsible for obliterating the last traces of pagan worship, destroying pagan temples and holy places with such fervor that the pagans themselves resorted to the sword. He took to the field of battle and resoundingly defeated these Italian troops, thus finally making the Roman empire a Christian empire. Yet, when, in 390, the Emperor Theodosius slaughtered 7000 Thessalonicans in revenge for a riot they had instigated, St. Ambrose refused to allow the ruler of the whole Roman empire, the ruler of the entire known civilized world, to step foot into a church until he had confessed his sin and performed eight months penance. It didn’t matter how staunch a supporter of Christian Faith the Emperor might be. He had sinned. He could not profane the holy places by his presence until his sins were forgiven. 

Keeping the riff-raff out is just good practice. Even today, tourists are denied entrance to the great basilicas of Rome if they are clothed in an all too unconcerned fashion. There are standards. 

 Thus, it is somewhat puzzling to read Cardinal George’s latest missive to the people of Illinois. 

"Should Catholic ’pro-choice’ politicians receive Holy Communion? Objectively, no; but subjectively a politician may have convinced himself he is in good conscience. The burden of helping politicians form their consciences falls back upon their pastors. Such a conversation about personal conversion is hard to have in the midst of the pressures of electioneering. As the conversations, both public and private, go on, however, "pro-choice" politicians will inevitably find themselves ever more estranged from their own community of faith. This is tragic, not only for politicians, most of whom went into public service for generous motives, but for the faith community itself.

Should a minister of Holy Communion give a ‘pro-choice’ politician the Body of the Lord? If a voting record is evidence of ‘manifest and obstinate’ sin, no. The objection is raised that voting for abortion isn’t the only political sin, even though abortion and euthanasia are the moral bottom line. Nevertheless, a firm case can be made that refusing Communion, after pastoral counseling and discussion, is a necessary response to the present scandal. Some bishops have made that case. If I haven’t made it in this Archdiocese, it’s primarily because I believe it would turn the reception of Holy Communion into a circus here. Who should be excluded? Is a special list to be published or will the Communion minister make the determination, supposing that a particular politician is even recognized by the minister. Will the media be invited in to watch a confused or disobedient minister give the Eucharist to a politician making a point? What happens next?" 

The answer is obvious. Every Catholic Church has men who volunteer to be ushers. In America, the usher holds a largely ceremonial post with few duties. American ushers do, however, have one distinctly odd habit, a distorted throw-back to the original function of the usher, or door-warden. 

 For obscure reasons, American ushers in some churches think they have a right to tell people when they can walk up to receive the Eucharist. That is, they position themselves at the rear of the communion line in such a way that the faithful are deterred from standing up and approaching the Eucharist until such time as the usher deems that they may approach. 

Now, from a sacramental point of view, it is not at all obvious why this would be the case. What amazing spiritual insight do ushers possess that tells them the people in the front of the congregation will always be prepared to come forward to meet God well before anyone in the back of the congregation is ready to receive? Clearly the European-style rush of uninhibited congregants towards the altar offends the American sense of assembly-line order, so ushers take it upon themselves to transform this most intimate encounter with Christ into something less spontaneous and more… well… strait-jacketed. Though the ushers thereby violate the sacramental rights of the people to come forward when they are ready, it accords with everyone's over-inflated sense of social decorum, so the practice is well-tolerated, even actively encouraged. 

 But, though the current practice is rather a violation of the congregants' rights, the ushers' instincts are right. The door-wardens of the early Church did something very much akin to what ushers do now, the difference being that the door-wardens would not let anyone into the physical building unless they were known to and approved by the wardens. If you were unknown to the wardens, you had to present a letter from your priest or bishop testifying to the fact that you were a Catholic in good standing with the Church. Only then could you enter and prepare yourself for attendance at the sacred duties of the Mass. When the deacon cried out, "The doors, the doors!", the altar servers would swing the doors of the iconostasis shut, while at the same time, the door wardens would swing the outer doors of the Church shut. God was coming. "Holy things for the holy!" the priest cried, for only holy congregants could stand the presence of the living God. Penitents and pagans had to remain outside. 

Cardinal George can solve his problem right now, today, simply by re-constituting the ancient office of door warden. He acknowledges that no one who supports abortion should receive the Eucharist. He acknowledges that every minister of the Eucharist has the duty to refuse such individuals the Body and Blood of Christ. He has only to solve the problem of how to prevent a circus during Mass. 

Simple. Don’t let the riff-raff in. Keep pro-abortion politicians and the media on the street. They can film and demonstrate all they want out there. By this very action, we remind the world that human beings are a sacramental people – that means that external created reality always reflects the internal spiritual disposition. A pagan or sinner who approaches to profane the holy now encounters the reality. The doors that lead to holiness are closed. The only thing that will open those doors is a penitent heart.

The Power of Grace

In years gone by, anarchists held strong sway in the political tradition. They held that no law was just, no law should be imposed. There are few who still hold to this. Or, rather, there are few who hold to it in an obvious way. But anarchism is alive and well, and in a most surprising place.

Luther, the man who started the Reformation, famously denied that reason was anything except the whore of the devil. Not only is faith alone all we need to deal with the world, everything else is a positive enemy to faith. Unfortunately, in order to reach this conclusion, Luther had to twist Scripture. He could not do it within the apostolic tradition, so he had to leave that tradition behind and declare it also an enemy to faith. Thus was born the doctrine of "sola scriptura" - Scripture is all we need.

As even Protestants themselves admit, Protestant insistence on "sola scriptura" makes everyone their own Pope. What they fail to realize is this: sola scriptura also renders moral relativism an absolute necessity. After all, Scripture defines moral existence, moral reality. What better definition of relativism could be devised than saying that everyone creates their own "spirit-led" interpretation of reality? As history has shown, "sola scriptura" is nothing but a series of practical experiments in relativism. It could not last long unchallenged.

Sinful man, in the form of those who denied God's existence, soon began defining their own reality within the confines of Protestant dialogue. The atheists responded by embracing the Protestant ethic of moral relativism, but they were thereby forced to argue that the Protestants got part of the argument backwards. Faith is the opiate of the masses - reason alone is the thing.

If we accept the moral relativism of sola scriptura, the atheists' conclusion is hard to avoid. Atheism's insistence on reason alone is simply an attempt to systematize the experiments in relativism according to the only measure that sola scriptura allows: the human mind. But here is the irony. This sole standard of measurement is, as we saw above, also denied by Protestants - reason is the whore of the devil, remember?

Here's the remarkable conclusion. Oddly enough, the atheist version of moral relativism is a wild attempt to retain and return to at least some absolute standard. Secular atheists recognize that you can't throw away Scripture and rationality simultaneously or all you have left is anarchy. Put another way, if you embrace both Protestant positions, you must necessarily enter into Luther's wars of the Reformation. Luther and the other reformers were too stupid to realize that.

It's hard to believe, but there it is. Secular atheism is actually a kind of conservative movement, in one sense at least - it attempts to conserve some absolute, some last court of appeal. The evangelicals who oppose them do so not out of logical consistency (the hobgoblin of little minds, according to them), but out of a wild chaos, a howling wilderness in which nothing is absolute except the culture their fathers came from.

The evangelical/fundamentalist/Protestant ethos is not based in logic, for it specifically denies logic. It is not based in moral absolutes, because anyone can interpret Scripture as they wish, and who can deny the correctness of a sola scriptura interpretation? Rather, their ethos is based in the remnants of Catholic culture they have managed to maintain and hand down from generation to generation, a dwindling store of cultural imperatives which cannot be justified in Scripture and which they refuse to acknowledge as Tradition.

Thus, we have the trinity of positions we see today. Those of the Protestant tradition essentially claim culture as their absolute standard, the gold standard against which everything is measured. Those of the secular atheist tradition claim faulty human reason as their absolute. Those of the Catholic tradition claim the fullness of divine revelation, both spoken and written, as the only True Absolute.

If you want to understand the power of grace, think on this. You might assume that reason alone is better than anarchy under any conditions. You would be wrong. Today's secular atheists show us exactly the kind of depths unaided human reason attains. Homosexuality, abortion, euthanasia, the drug culture - it's not a pretty sight. Protestantism shows us what grace-fueled anarchy looks like, and it's a darned sight better, though still not perfect. They embrace contraception but condemn its daughter, abortion. They embrace divorce but condemn its daughter, euthanasia, the deliberate killing of the lonely and despondent. They embrace the Ten Commandments but make no mention of the Sermon on the Mount.

So, we are in a fight between the anarchists and the rationalists. As a Catholic, I am in the distinctly odd position of backing the anarchists. But, as a Catholic I have no choice. I have to support the Spirit, wherever grace is poured out.

The Vatican Rag

It all seems oddly familiar: a statement from the Vatican, a source who insists that the words of the statement should be published far and wide, and then a sudden retraction. Cast your mind back ten months and you will recall this exact chain of events, but the famous name involved was Mel Gibson’s, not Senator John Kerry.

In that instance, Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal, Reuters and the National Catholic Reporter all reported the same thing. They had been told the Holy Father had seen Gibson’s Passion and had said, "It is as it was." While Cindy Wooden of Catholic News Service (CNS) became the first journalist to report otherwise, the New York Times quickly weighed in, confirming that the words had been said. But Wooden reported the very next day with a quote from the same archbishop interviewed by the NYT, that the words had NOT been said.

The incredible mix-up lasted for weeks, ending only with a Vatican official lamely making statements that implied his e-mails had been spoofed, the words fabricated. When questioned on how this was possible, the door closed. No more statements issued forth.

Now, we are faced with a similar controversy, but this time the stakes are much higher. Marc Balistrieri, the canon lawyer who started the heresy lawsuit against John Kerry, asked the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith two questions. Father Augustine DiNoia, formerly the head theological advisor for the USCCB and a frequent lecturer at Franciscan University’s summer conferences, directed a Washington D.C. theologian to answer the questions. While neither the questions nor the answers mentioned Senator John Kerry by name, the answers clearly indicated that people who held Senator John Kerry’s position on abortion were material heretics subject to automatic excommunication. Worse, if such people had been formally instructed by their bishops without recanting, they were formal heretics.

When Balistrieri asked for permission to make the answers public, he was granted this permission by both the CDF and the theologian in question. He subsequently made the document public on EWTN and dozens of news outlets picked the story up from there. Remarkably, it was again Cindy Wooden of CNS who was the first to trumpet bad news: Fr. DiNoia suddenly claimed he had never been in contact with Balistrieri.

This was rather a remarkable turn-around, given that the answers – the contents of which the CDF has never questioned – explicitly says Fr. DiNoia was the man who asked that Balistrieri’s questions be answered. Given the alacrity with which Balistrieri’s questions were answered, a speed virtually unknown to Rome, and given the explicit reference to the good priest in the answer itself, Fr. DiNoia's position seems even less believable then the "e-mail fabrication" position taken with Noonan ten months ago.

What’s going on?

The answer might be found in the personalities involved. Fr. DiNoia is a very orthodox priest with very orthodox opinions, but he was also the head theological advisor for the USCCB from July 1993 to February 2001 . That means he lived in Washington DC for nearly a decade and was intimately acquainted with all the bishops in the New York to DC corridor, including the head of the Boston archdiocese. It is, perhaps, an indication of his attachment to that region to recall that the man he commissioned to answer the questions was not a Roman theologian, but a citizen of Washington DC – that is, he was undoubtedly a friend whom Fr. DiNoia could count on to provide a profoundly orthodox answer.

The friend provided precisely the answer Fr. DiNoia expected. Unfortunately, Fr. DiNoia has lived in Rome since 2001. Rome is not exactly up-to-date on the latest news. He was unaccountably unaware of the Kerry heresy lawsuit. The theologian he commissioned may or may not have been unaware of the lawsuit – if he was, he must have assumed Fr. DiNoia was informed. In any case, when the answer became public (after Balistrieri cleared publication with both the CDF and the theologian), it is unquestionable that stuff hit the fan and Boston’s archbishop hit the phone.

Fr. DiNoia’s answer could be seen as meddling with the internal affairs of the archdiocese of Boston. That’s the kind of thing that can get a priest in extremely hot water, even if he is a high muckety-muck in the CDF. If the archbishop chose to paint the CDF response that way, he would certainly have generated the kind of response we’ve seen from Fr. DiNoia – backpedaling that would do a circus clown proud.

Not to harp on a subject, but this gets tiresome after awhile. As has been noted before, Fr. DiNoia is a tremendously orthodox priest. Unfortunately, he is caught in a battle of bishops, and this is the kind of thing that will grind nearly any priest to shreds.

Now that the CDF is officially backing off the correct position, it may be worthwhile to recall the last time bishops got involved in US politics when an intrinsically evil agenda was being promoted. We have only to read the testimony of Joseph Califano Jr., LBJ’s representative to the USCCB. When LBJ wanted to promote birth control in 1965, the USCCB agreed to allow him to do it, as long as he used a different phrase. Birth control is intrinsically evil, after all. They agreed on the phrase, "the population problem."

Now, that phrase is essentially heresy. After all, what is a population problem but too many people? And what are people but images of God? So what were the bishops saying, "It is permissible to talk about the problem of having too many images of God in the world. It is permissible to work on reducing that problem." Very nice sentiment. Not exactly Mother Theresa’s sentiment, is it? "Children are like flowers. How can you say we have too many flowers?"

Thus, as a result of this agreement, we were treated to the June 22, 1965 spectacle of Boston’s Cardinal John Cushing, "I could not in conscience approve the legislation [supporting legalization of contraception, but] I will make no effort to impose my opinion upon others… I do not see where I have an obligation to impose my religious beliefs on people who just do not accept the same faith as I do." This statement is rank material heresy. No one uttered a peep. Now we know why.

But, of course, it is all of a piece. This was the same set of bishops who allowed their liturgy directors to get rid of statues and images of saints. The proliferation of sacred images is confusing to the people, just as the proliferation of images of God is problematic to US foreign policy. They allowed the tabernacle to be moved away from the center of worship, they introduced the experiment of a children’s liturgy. Dumbing down the Faith is easier when the shepherds who guard the Faith have already been dumbed down by the culture they live in.

As Califano says, "Those were the days when you could sit down with the bishops; they were sensitive to the separation of church and state in the wake of the cliffhanger election of the first Catholic president, John F. Kennedy. The bishops and the laity accepted the assertion of the Jesuit theologian Gustave Weigel, in his widely reported 1960 lecture at Catholic University, that 'the Roman Catholic Church would not attempt to interfere in the political activities of a Catholic president, nor would a Catholic president be bound by Catholic morality in deciding public issues.' "

Now, Gustave Weigel was himself proclaiming a heretical position, but the USCCB sat still for it because the USCCB was… what? The charitable explanation is that the bishops of the USCCB were not well-formed in the Faith. That is the best one can say.

And what is the best one can say about this situation? Well, we now have part of the answer from Boston. This suit is viewed in certain circles as an action that has to be quashed in any way possible. Lay people cannot be permitted to make bishops look bad (as if they needed the help). If Balistrieri is not stopped, this kind of thing will proliferate beyond all bounds. As I've noted here before, there are certain circles who are deathly afraid of this.

Rome is not monolithic. Pressure is being brought to bear at the highest levels. Kerry and the bishops that are not opposed to him barely escaped checkmate this time, but the mills of God are grinding. Let’s see how much longer he and his companions can escape the wheels.

Update to Kerry's Heresy

I was recently asked this question:

So as I understand it Kerry has already excommunicated HIMSELF by his vocal, public and longstanding support and pledges of future support for abortion rights.

What remains is an public acknowledgment of that fact. So if a reporter asks Bishop O'Mally the right question such as, "Has John Kerry excommunicated himself according to canon law?" All the bishop has to do is answer "YES".

Correct?

That's how I read it. If O'Malley says ANYTHING else, he is admitting that neither he nor his predecessor ever had formal interview with Senator Kerry to apprise him of his danger. Thus, O'Malley would be publicly admitting to being in violation of canon 386 himself, since canon 386 requires him to teach the faithful under his care the morals of the faith, frequently and in person. I don't know if O'Malley is a canon lawyer (most bishops are), but he would be a real foolish man not to be talking to one right now.

O'Malley has GOT to be sweating bullets, hoping no one asks that question for a couple of reasons. First, the answer places him squarely under the judgement of canon 386. Second, the only reason any other bishop has leeway on giving Kerry the Eucharist right now is that Kerry's own bishop hasn't publicly pronounced on the matter, so they may entertain doubt as to whether or not O'Malley has done his job. Those who think he has must deny Kerry, those who think O'Malley hasn't done his job might give the Eucharist on the grounds that Kerry's archbishop is incompetent and Kerry is too ignorant to figure it out on his own.

But once O'Malley publicly answers that question with a "yes," EVERY OTHER BISHOP MUST DENY KERRY THE EUCHARIST.

If any bishops refuse to follow that judgment, they are now at odds with the presiding bishop and arguably in formal schism.

These next few days are absolutely ticklish for O'Malley and for Kerry's presidential bid. This news is, no lie, the October surprise that kills Kerry's bid. All that needs happen now is for local news media to be apprised of the situation.

The Kerry Heresy

"Consequently, if a Catholic publicly and obstinately supports the civil right to abortion, knowing that the Church teaches officially against that legislation, he or she commits that heresy envisioned by Can. 751 of the Code. Provided that the presumptions of knowledge of the law and penalty (Can. 15, s. 2) and imputability (Can. 1321, s. 3) are not rebutted in the external forum, one is automatically excommunicated according to Can. 1364, s. 1."

Rome has spoken, the matter is nearly closed. As those who obtain their news from sources other than the MSM know, Marc Balestrieri, a lay canon lawyer, initiated a formal charge of heresy against Senator Kerry in the spring of this year. For having the hubris to do so, he was fired from his job by Cardinal Mahoney of Los Angeles, who is apparently not averse to profaning the Eucharist as long as the political situation is not disturbed. In August, the lawyer in question took his case to Rome, proposing two formal dubiums (questions). The paragraph above is Rome's official response.

With that response, there is now no question that Senator Kerry is a material heretic, as this forum and dozens of others have pointed out for quite some time. All that now needs to be demonstrated is that Senator Kerry was formally made aware of the gravity of his stance on abortion and he refused the instruction. With that demonstration, Senator Kerry is formally a heretic.

Now, keep in mind that this was not rocket science. A lay person was forced to bring this suit (something only possible with the 1983 update to canon law) precisely because American bishops have been largely too lazy and too ignorant to take it upon themselves to touch the matter. But much more needs to be pointed out.

With Rome's pronouncement in hand, the canonical trial under Archbishop O'Malley is pretty much pro forma. After all, it is Archbishop O'Malley's duty as bishop to teach the Faith, especially public unrepentant sinners like Senator Kerry. So, either O'Malley admits malfeasance by pointing out that he failed to instruct Senator Kerry or he admits that he informed Kerry and is forced, by the canonical trial, to formally declare Senator Kerry a heretic and an excommunicate.

Now, one wonders why something so obvious to Rome (it only took 11 days for Rome to rule on the matter, which is equivalent to less than five minutes in American time), was so obscure to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB)? Of course, there can be but one explanation - the USCCB has been dancing around the problem of schism so hard that it felt it couldn't deal with the doctrinal issue at all. They permitted the Eucharist to be profaned by a heretic because they feared schism. They didn't have the guts to teach the Faith. That's one explanation. The other is that the vast majority of American bishops are as stupid as rocks and/or as ignorant as the unwashed savage, because they couldn't figure out in months what it took Rome only days to pronounce on.

It's hard to know which explanation is more charitable. Is it better to assume most of America's bishops are mental incompetents or spiritual cowards? Given the speed of the Roman response, it's hard to see what other alternatives are available.

In any case, Rome has probably headed off formal schism for the moment. If the USCCB has demonstrated anything, it is precisely that only a handful of bishops have any backbone. Thankfully, the bishops with backbone are the orthodox ones who have already cut Kerry off from communion. The rest are jellyfish. Now that Rome has provided the blueprints for how the case under O'Malley is to proceed, the good archbishop would have to be enormously incompetent to hand down any verdict other than "heretic;" indeed, he would be proclaiming himself incompetent on a number of fronts. Thus, within scant weeks, all the bishops, all the Catholics in the United States, will be back in full communion. The possibility that an orthodox bishop would pronounce someone like Cardinal Mahoney out of communion with the Church is very likely closed, barring acts of the greatest stupidity on the part of the Los Angeles bishop and his kind.

Kerry can't afford to change his stance - it would kill what little hope he has for the Presidency. Thus, Kerry is as good as condemned. Cardinal Mahoney, Father Greeley and the rest have had all their normal avenues for confusing the issue cut off. Archbishop O'Malley must either proclaim himself an incompetent shepherd or Senator Kerry a heretic. Senator Kennedy and company will follow on immediately, with Frances Kissling and her ilk undoubtedly waiting in the wings.

There's a lesson in all of this. Like God Himself, Rome will not intrude into our lives unless we petition. She respects the principle of subsidiarity, the exercise of free will. Even though John Paul II reformed canon law so that lay people could do an end-run around heretical bishops, he did not force anyone's hand. Like God in the Garden of Eden, he made sure everyone knew the rules, then sat back and waited for us to decide what we wanted to do. He's had to wait 20 years for anyone to pick up on the hint.

We lay people are slow and stupid, but we have finally got the message, Holy Father.

Now, let's clean house.

The Knife Fight

Jared Olar just returned this to my attention, so it's time to analyze it. An article in the September 28th edition of The Australian indicates that Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln, the authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail, are suing Dan Brown for copyright infringement. They accuse Danny Boy of having stolen their whole jigsaw puzzle plot. It should be an absolutely easy case for them to win. But that’s not the funny part of this whole escapade. The lawsuit is hilarious primarily because their greed has forced everyone involved in this farce to show their hands.

You see, while fiction is subject to copyright law, facts are not. If I wrote a novel based on the James Bond character created by Ian Fleming, for instance, I would be violating Ian Fleming’s copyright, and his estate could sue me for copyright infringement. However, if I wrote a story about the life of William Jefferson Clinton, former President Clinton could not sue me for copyright infringement. I might get sued for libel (the written version of slander) if I mis-stated the facts, but that is about it. He cannot copyright the facts concerning his own life.

Now, let’s say you took existing information or discovered new factual evidence and provided a totally novel interpretation of the facts of his life, thereby completely explaining why Slick Willy has women problems and feels our pain. You wrote an outstanding article or book concerning this idea, but it failed to gain wide circulation. I saw your theory and based my biography of Clinton on your interpretation without giving you any credit. Have I violated your copyright?

Not at all. I am a plagiarist, but I haven’t violated your copyright because you have no copyright on facts
either. All you’ve done is come up with a new theory that covers the facts – and I stole it without accreditation. But I don’t need to accredit you. After all, I could have looked at the facts myself and independently arrived at the same conclusion through simple logical analysis, and you would have a hard time proving otherwise.

In any case, while I may be dead guilty of plagiarism, and you may well be able to prove it, the most you can do is (justifiably) ruin my sterling reputation by proving I’m a plagiarist. You can’t recover monetary damages from me for plagiarism because plagiarism is only a crime when I’m stealing fictional material or lifting direct and lengthy quotes from your factual material without in any way acknowledging that you wrote it. Plagiarism is not a crime if I’m stealing facts. It may not be wise, but it isn’t a crime. That’s why journalists get fired for plagiarism, but they rarely get sued for it, while novelists and playwrights sue for plagiarism but only as the basis for proving copyright infringement.

But Baigent isn’t suing for plagiarism. He’s suing for copyright infringement. He's not alleging that Brown lifted whole passages of his book verbatim. Instead, he's suing on the bases that that Brown stole his "jigsaw puzzle," his plot. By the very fact that both sides are gearing up for litigation, both sides implicitly acknowledge that they wrote works of pure fiction. Baigent is suing because Brown stole his fictional plot-line and used it in his own work of fiction. Ah, how the worm turns! Brown amassed a reputed 140 billion English pounds by repeating over and over, "Why are you upset at my book? It’s just fiction." All those quotes will now come back to him and render his bank account like unto the vast sandy expanses of the Sahara.

But it's hard to feel any sympathy. After all, ultimately, these guys all still won. You can’t un-buy the book. Now it’s just a question of how the thieves divvy up the swag. Ah, well. The book was amusing. The knife-fight will be too.

The Village Idiot

Research is moving forward to create cloned children out of left-over body parts from aborted babies and 'spare' IVF embryos according to a recent article from the National Post. To those who have been following the reproductive technologies, this is not news.

Chimeras, human-animal hybrids, have been created in the lab for years. Human DNA has been injected into cow, pig and monkey ova and allowed to grow into embryos before being destroyed. Ova have been harvested from the ovaries of aborted girls, artificially brought to maturity and inseminated. While some countries outlaw this, others (Canada, for instance) permit it as part of what is known as "therapeutic cloning." The phrase seems something of a misnomer, given no known therapy uses the cells these techniques generate.

Meanwhile, we see Senator Kerry insist "that some of the most pioneering cures and treatments are right at our fingertips, but because of the stem cell ban, they remain beyond our reach." Now, we could write many different essays with the kind of breath-taking assertion Senator Kerry brings forward. We could point out that stem cell research actually began under the current adminstration, that private funding is doing just fine, or that embryonic stem cell research shows embryonic stem cells don’t work. We could even talk about the fact that adult stem cells, cells which generate no moral objections from anyone, are actually the only useful kind of stem cell, something no one in the press or on Senator Kerry’s staff seems willing to admit.

But let’s ignore all that and study a different aspect of this issue. Specifically, there was in Senator Kerry’s remarks a certain resonance that almost sounded pro-life. Think about it. "The most pioneering cures and treatments [could be ours]…" Where have you heard that before? Pro-life supporters have been using that argument for thirty years, but in an entirely different context.

"Perhaps we have aborted the person who will cure [AIDS, cancer, muscular dystrophy, heart disease]." Remember that phrase? The argument is so old, and so roundly ignored by abortion supporters, that it seems quaint to even bring it up. But the force of the argument was not ignored. Our wily opponents were taking notes. Look what they are willing to do instead.

Today, instead of saving the child in the womb, they will abort that child, culture the ova they harvest from the dead child’s sexual organs, mature that ova in the laboratory, combine it with DNA from someone else’s skin cells, mix them together in the lab, grow it into an embryo, implant the embryo into a surrogate mother or an artificial womb and then bring that child out into the world, so that child can save the world from cancer. Or perhaps they plan on using the resulting embryonic stem cells to culture the tissue that they use to incubate the anti-virus cure that solves AIDS. It’s hard to know, really. The advances of science quite take one’s breath away.

Now, unenlightened savages such as myself look at all of this and think, "That seems an awful lot of work. Couldn’t we just help the mother of that child give birth to her instead of aborting her? Couldn’t we give her the support she needs to raise that girl, help her grow to womanhood, let her conceive a child with her husband and let the couple raise that child themselves? If you wanted the child’s stem cells, you could get them from the umbilical cord at birth, from the skin at two years of age, a small bit of fat in the adolescent years, a nasal cell biopsy from the young adult as part of the vaccination regimen prior to that summer youth hostel vacation in Europe. You get your cells, everyone gets to live. Wouldn’t that be simpler?"

Of course it would be simpler. But it wouldn’t be right. You see, it’s not that these people want to get into our bedrooms. Rather, they want to take over our job in the bedroom, relieve us of the responsibility, control the ultimate means of production, as it were. If we can’t be convinced that we have to get licenses from the government before we can receive permission to have children, then it is the duty of the leadership in this country to find a way to make children without involving parents at all. "Let the citizens disport themselves however they please in the bedroom, but for God’s sake, leave the baby-making to us!" cry our most advanced scientists and social progressives.

That’s why I read with enormous delight Katha Politt’s incoherent racisms on CBSNews.com. We can’t vote for Bush. He might appoint an Hispanic to the Supreme Court… A Catholic Hispanic… An orthodox Catholic Hispanic... "I can hear it now: How can we deny Torquemada the American dream?"

Now, we will ignore the fact that cloning is against Catholic principles, so the re-emergence of Torquemada as a contemporary justice of the peace would be entirely due not to JP II, who abhors such biological manipulations, but to people very much like Katha Politt. There is no little irony in the fact that Senator Kerry’s supporters are much more likely to bring Torquemada back from the grave than are the men and women surrounding George W. Bush. The irony is in no way mitigated when one considers that Kerry purports to be the Catholic in the group. Given the evidence, there are undoubtedly some who suspect the Kerry candidacy is but a devious papal scheme to clone the original Spanish inquisition back into existence.

If so, we need only consider way in which children will soon be made, and know that Hillary Rodham Clinton, the smartest woman in the world, had long since warned us of the possibility. Once we consider the surgical equipment, the medical training, the personnel, the money, the resources involved in all the complex steps required to do things the right way instead of the old way, we can see that she was absolutely right.

It takes a village to make a child.

Meet My Wives

In A Deafening Silence I discussed the unusually low amount of support rank-and-file Christians seem to have for outlawing homosexual marriages. While state initiatives in Missouri and Louisiana have overwhelmingly trounced the idea, US Congressmen are not hearing much from their constituents on the matter.

Now, USA Today has weighed in on the subject, or at least, weighed in on one aspect of the subject. The October 4, 2004 issue saw an article by Jonathan Turley, Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington Law School, in which he defended the idea that polygamy, polyandry and group marriage would soon have to be legalized.

Now, this is not news for anyone following the subject. His opinion precisely matches that of Justice Scalia in his dissent from the majority in Lawrence vs. Stenburg, the case that legalized sodomy in Texas. Numerous others have commented on the logical silliness of allowing sodomy while outlawing polygamy. But that isn’t the point I want to drive home here. The point that should be made now is precisely the same point made in "Silence." From a logical perspective, it is unlikely that this drive towards polygamy can be stopped. After all, who is left to oppose it?

Clearly, Mormons have a vested interest in remaining silent on the issue. While their faith now outlaws polygamy, this doctrinal position was taken up only after immense political, and even military, pressure was placed upon Mormon communities to conform to the larger Christian community. But Mormons are not the only ones who have no interest in fighting polygamy.

Muslims won’t lift a hand to stop its legalization – legal polygamy is part of sharia law, after all. Orthodox Jews are not opposed to polygamy either. "In the Middle Ages, Rabbenu Gershom of Mainz, known as the Light of the Diaspora, pronounced a herem (ban) on polygamy and, incidetnally, also on divorce without the wife’s consent… but this does not alter the fundamental fact that [Talmudic] laws of marriage and divorce recognize the validity of polygamy" (Adin Steinsaltz, The Essential Talmud, p. 133). The historical evidence seems to indicate that, like American Mormons, medieval Jews faced the same pressure from the surrounding Christian community to renounce their polygamous ways and resolved the issue in a very similar way.

But what of Christians themselves? When Philip of Hesse asked Martin Luther for advice concerning how to deal with his mistress, Luther advised Philip to marry her. Philip objected – he was already married. Luther replied that this was no obstacle. Nothing in Scripture expressly required a lay person to have only one wife.

"I confess that I cannot forbid a person to marry several wives, for it does not contradict the Scripture. If a man wishes to marry more than one wife he should be asked whether he is satisfied in his conscience that he may do so in accordance with the word of God. In such a case the civil authority has nothing to do in the matter."

However, Luther recommended that Philip should keep his second marriage a secret to avoid public scandal. Five other Lutheran theologians signed the letter advocating polygamy, including Melancthon and Bucer. Some groups of early Anabaptists, such as those in Munster, practiced polygamy.

Henry VIII almost certainly practiced polygamy. Historians agree that Henry had secretly married Ann Boleyn in 1532, well before he decreed his own marriage to Catherine of Aragon annulled in 1533. At least two American Anglican ministers defended the practice as well, Reverend Mr. Michael Smith, an 18th century rector of Prince Frederick’s Parish in South Carolina, and Reverend Mr Martin Madan, an Anglican priest associated with the Methodist Revival. Both argued, like Luther, that it was better to enter into polygamy then to divorce the first wife and throw her into an uncaring world. All three appealed to the example of the Old Testament patriarchs and the fact that Scripture only restricts bishops to one wife, it is silent in regards to the laity. (1 Timothy 3:2). Even as recently as 1998, Wisconsin Lutheran Synod scholars have noted that the insistence on monogamy was questionable both on Scriptural grounds and on the difficulties it caused to missionary efforts in polygamous societies, which comprise about 70% of the world’s population.

It is impossible cultures that embraced homosexual marriage. It is easy to find cultures that permit polygamy. The silence from the viewers’ gallery will again be deafening. This will all weigh in the coming arguments and the court decisions which will soon follow.

The irony is rich. Despite their pretended insistence on Scripture alone, the Protestant "reformers" took with them much that Catholic Faith taught. Whether Protestant, evangelical or fundamentalist, every Christian today owes the core of his belief to Catholic Faith, a Catholicism that is unpolished and poorly ordered, but Catholic nonetheless. The opposition to polygamy in this country is unquestionably a vestige of Catholic belief, carried - unquestioned - by Protestants for generations, but now coming under scrutiny by secular atheists.

Protestants will discover, to their horror, that they hold to monogamy for no particular Scriptural reason. Like the fight over gay marriage, which consists largely of non-Catholic Christians saying, "It will harm marriage – we can’t really explain how, but it will!" the fight over monogamy will demonstrate just how poor a faith without reason is. Catholics can appeal not only to Scripture, but also to the natural law, to millennia of divine tradition, to the divine authority of the Magisterium, the teaching office of the Church. Non-Catholic Christians have nothing to appeal to but Scripture, and Scripture says nothing in particular in opposition to polygamy.

Appeals to "faith alone" no longer work in this culture, a culture that holds there is but one God and Materialistic Reason is His Name. The atheists of the Enlightenment are playing on their home court, while "faith alone" Christians have thrown away their defense with their opening statement of belief. Only an understanding of the world that embraces both Fides et Ratio, faith and reason together, can hope to defeat the atheist scourge. In short, unless America becomes Catholic, the laws against polygamy cannot hope to stand.

Do YOU Believe in Miracles?

I have on this blog excoriated the bishops in general and the USCCB in particular for their lack of backbone when it comes to various doctrinal issues.

Today, I am happy to report that the USCCB has actually taught Catholic doctrine, and done so in opposition to the position of a major Catholic university and hospital.

As Jill Stanek has reported, at least two Catholic hospitals have a policy of inducing early labor when a child is found to be anencephalic. They erroneously claimed this was not an abortion, just early labor, done in order to prevent mental suffering to the mother.

This position is, of course, stupid and the purest barnyard excrement, but it is endorsed by several well-known pagan ethicists who also happen to be ordained Catholic priests. These priests claimed they were acting in full accord with USCCB directives.

They lie, of course.

The USCCB statement on anencephaly can be found at EWTN.
Jill Stanek's commentary on Loyola's attempt to spin the issue can be found here.

Man, just when you think the bishops are past all hope, grace shines forth and they demonstrate they are not yet all theologically insane. God bless the USCCB for this accuracy. Some may say that, like the faithful steward of last week's Gospel, they should not expect praise for doing that which they are supposed to do anyway, yet it's nice to get an "attaboy!" even so.

Attaboy, USCCB. See? Teaching doctrine ain't that hard, is it? Do some more - you may grow to like it.

The Muslim Problem

In 1967 and 1968, Japan, Europe and America were aflame with violence. From the London School of Economics, to the Sorbonne, from Japan to Rome and in dozens of cities across the United States, tens of thousands of students staged protests and sit-ins throughout the countries of the First World. While dozens of books with varying theories concerning the causes of this conflagration have been written, most agree implicitly or explicitly on one thing: post-war fecundity, the unusually high world-wide population of young people following World War II, was the fuel for the fire. 

The irony is rather interesting. In the mid to late 1800’s, Darwin and Galton together created the science of eugenics. Darwin’s evolution theory was popular for essentially one reason: it was developed against the backdrop of an English industrial revolution that itself had created soaring urban population densities, population densities with resulting problems of crime, housing and sanitation never before seen in the modern area. Darwin and Galton seemed to be describing the roots of a problem that no one knew how to address. Darwin described how dense populations worked, Galton came up with the term "eugenics" to describe a theoretical solution to the problem dense populations posed, and the American, Margaret Sanger, provided the practical solution: contraception. 

Though nearly two millenia of Christian opposed contraception, socialist fear-mongers used the threat of overpopulation as a bogeyman to argue against the capitalist state. They eventually won out. Fueled by two world wars and the capitulation of the Anglican Church in 1930, contraception quickly gained social acceptance across all strata of European and American society. As several Catholic popes predicted, this destroyed Christian culture. You see, increasingly affluent adults began to realize that they need not ever take on the responsibility and discomfort of raising children, so they stopped doing so. 

Today, every First World country is experiencing a birth dearth. There are no longer enough native births in any First World country to maintain national economies, much less national social support systems. The only thing that will keep the social support systems in these countries from melting down is immigration: massive immigration. European immigrants arrive primarily from Muslim North Africa. 

This does not bode well for the maintenance of European culture. This short history just goes to show that there is no one so parochial, so provincial in outlook, as an urban intellectual. Industrialization always brings high urban populations, which populations in turn bring the urban intelligentsia to the (shocking) realization that their intellects are not up to the task of solving the problems high populations pose. "If we can’t solve these problems, no one can," they conclude. Thus, their local problem is soon described, by common agreement among urban intellectuals, as a world-threatening problem. It would be comical if their solution were not so blood-thirsty. They always eventually solve their difficulties by getting rid of people. They haven’t the imagination to come up with anything else. It is no wonder that the intellectual’s favorite thought experiment involves seven people stranded at sea in a lifeboat built for six. They will happily spend weeks discussing who shall be thrown off (hint: it’s never them). 

 "This little jaunt through history is all well and good," you may be thinking, "but the article is entitled, ‘The Muslim Problem’ and so far, not a word has been said about Muslims." So, let’s say a word or two. Many people, including myself, have been concerned about the massive Moslem immigration into Europe. America is beginning to face the consequences of European Islamicization as she finds fewer and fewer allies there for Middle East adventures. America needs to get used to that. France, Germany, even England, will become less and less amenable to American policy if only because their politicians will become more and more interested in placating the Muslim vote – at least for the short period of time remaining before the major political figures of Europe are themselves Muslim. 

Many people have been describing this problem, but few see any solution. While I do not pose a solution, I do pose a relevant series of questions. Are Muslim intellectuals capable of avoiding the intellectual hubris that post-Christian atheist intellectuals have repeatedly fallen into? To what extent will the Muslims hollow themselves out, following the example of the European Christians? It’s too early to tell, but there are signs of hope. Iraq is, of course, fighting for its cultural life. If democracy and its woes is successfully introduced, traditional Islam in the land of Abraham will be rendered untenable. Neighboring Iran is on the very brink of revolution, as mobs of young people stage violent riots that are violently put down across the breadth of that nation. To the southwest, the House of Saud has never been particularly stable and nothing seems likely to increase its stability in the near future. It is doubtful they would have survived this long without American and European assistance. 

Christianity created the science that led to the Industrial Revolution. That revolution created the carrot of affluence and the stick of "overpopulation" that drives the contraceptive philosophy, a philosophy that destroys the ability to live the Christian life. Christian bishops, by and large, were not up to the task of removing the love of affluence or the fear that large populations would take the affluence money away. So, we in the West need to answer one question. What is inherent to Islam that will create the same kind of carrot and stick for Moslems? 

The varying flavors of Islam and the complete lack of central authority already guarantees that, when the right levers are found, the mullahs will be completely unable to pull their adherents back into line. Christian bishops may not be particularly competent, but the history of Islam demonstrates the mullahs are rarely any more competent. After all, if they were, there would not be so many variants of Islam. Whatever one may say about Christianity, we didn’t invent the term "assassin," nor does the act figure so prominently in Christian history as it does in the history of Islam. Just as Jerusalem was once the land of the Jews and the Christians, but will soon be the land of the Muslims (the demographics are inexorable), so Mecca and Medina may well find itself in the hands of secular atheists within a few generations, even as Europe and Indonesia become hotbeds of militant Islam. As recent events demonstrate, Islam is a tinderbox quite ready to eat itself up if only the right match can be found. It’s time we begin looking for the match.