A Modest Prophecy

With the 1968 release of Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI prophesied the explosion of pornography, divorce and sexually transmitted diseases. The prophesy came true. By the 1970’s, the pro-life movement prophesied that if abortion remained legal, child abuse would explode and lead to the legalization of sodomy and child sex. 

The first has come true, the second is so close to realization that nothing stands in its way. When we have a former Surgeon General (Jocelyn Elders) writing a glowing forward to a book that praises child-adult sex, when the American Psychological Association asserts that child-adult sex is not necessarily a psychiatric problem, when abortionists are never prosecuted for failing to report statutory rape, there really isn’t much farther to go. 

 Here’s a prophecy I made in the early 1990’s. Over a decade ago, when I was a pro-life atheist and the Web was still a glimmer in the eyes of Swiss researchers, I regularly took part in a pro-life Internet bulletin board debate in a group called alt.abortion. Because Jeffrey Dahmer’s crime was still front page headlines, and because the pro-abortionists in the discussion were always making outrageous statements about the sanctity of bodily autonomy, I proposed the following scenario: “Assume,” I said, “that Jeffrey Dahmer’s victims were willing victims. What if they wanted to be killed and eaten? According to your theory of personal rights, Dahmer couldn’t be convicted of a crime, could he? He wouldn’t have committed one. After all, his victim has the right to do whatever he chooses with his body. Maybe Jeff and his victim were homosexual lovers. If he chooses to have Jeff make a meal of him, then who are we to get involved in affairs of the bedroom?” 

 Amazingly, a few of the pro-aborts agreed that he would not have committed a crime, and that government had no business interfering in such a situation. Most, however, responded by saying the situation was absurd: no one would do that. I was just a crazy pro-lifer grasping at straws to maintain an impossible position. 

 Looks like they were wrong. You may or may not have heard, but Germany is prosecuting the surviving homosexual who lived exactly this. The police know it was a consensual killing and consumption, because a videotape shows the victim’s male member being cut off and eaten by both gay men together before the victim was dispatched. Sadly, the Germans are having real trouble prosecuting the case. Seems the defense wants to argue for consensual action between two mature people, asserting that this was really just assisted suicide, which is legal in Germany. The German police, on the other hand, insist it was a killing for sexual satisfaction, which is illegal, and the disturbance of a corpse, which is also illegal. Germany has no laws against cannibalism. Oddly enough, American news outlets have not reported much on this story. When they have, they don't mention that it involved two gay men, nor do they name the body part that was severed and eaten. Which just goes to show that we shouldn't judge the news media too harshly. They may give us gays and sex in prime-time sitcoms, but they clearly want to spare our innocent ears the torrid details when it comes to the news. Aren't they sweet? 

 I have only one question: would consensual consumption be legal here? Personally, I don’t see why not. Roe vs. Wade and Doe vs. Bolton have already established the right to privacy as a right of highest importance. The government has no business invading our bedrooms. If a woman and her doctor have a right to kill a child for reasons of bodily autonomy, certainly a man and his lover have a right to assisted suicide for reasons of bodily autonomy - indeed, assisted suicide is legal in Oregon. If there are no attempts to rip off an insurance company through the death, who is being harmed? 

 It’s also not clear why any laws concerning disturbance of a corpse would apply - after all, the victim clearly stated that he preferred neither burial nor cremation but a nice garnish with a bottle of white wine. On what grounds does the state interfere? Health? But what if both were healthy? Besides, the Supreme Court, in Planned Parenthood vs. Casey, established that “at the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.” In Lawrence vs. the State of Texas, the high court made specific reference to this portion of the Casey decision in order to find Texas laws against sodomy unconstitutional. So, the law of the land certainly has all the elements necessary to support consensual homosexual cannibalism. 

But there is further precedent. Long before the perverse and evil Christians of Western Europe descended like locusts on the pure and innocent American native, the Aztecs had a quaint religious custom: they cut the still-beating heart out of a man’s chest as part of their ritual celebrations. They slaughtered up to 80,000 people a year this way. The east coast inhabitants of North America, the Indians who lived close to nature, to Mother Earth and Sister Wind, yea, verily even the forefathers of Pocahantus, regularly sliced up and ate captives, in that order. Even atheists remarked on the fact that the only reason the practice stopped was due to the influence of Jesuit missionaries (several of whom were also eaten and killed, in that order). So, as long as the victim was of the same religion and/or agreed to having it done to them, who has the right to stop them? Who are we to judge? Don’t all religious traditions have value? Shouldn’t we draw from everyone’s experience if we want to discover our true selves? After all, who are we to judge alternate religions, sexualities or gourmet tastes? 

 The Germans have found themselves in the dilemma posed by Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons: "When you knock all the laws flat… what will you hide behind when the devil whirls to face you?” Like the Ten Little Indians of Agatha Christie’s novel, the laws are being knocked flat one by one. What will we do when - not if, but when - this situation presents itself here?

Join the College of Athanasius

I know a director of religious education (DRE), in a reputedly orthodox diocese, who taught adults movingly and repeatedly about the problems with contraception. In fact, parishioners were actually acknowledging and repenting of the sin. With the arrival of a new pastor, that all stopped. The new pastor, reputed to be a man of deep prayer, didn’t want to deal with the angry phone calls from wealthy, unconverted parishioners. The DRE was ordered to be silent on the issue. Three silent months later, the DRE was fired.

I know of a priest who had a problem. One of the extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist (EME) in his parish worked as a counselor for Planned Parenthood. When he found out, the priest removed the person from ministry. That didn’t last long. The individual who had been dismissed appealed to the bishop. The bishop ordered the priest to rescind the decision. The priest did not want to be crucified by his bishop. The EME was re-instated.

I know of an extremely well-known and orthodox Catholic author and speaker who was asked at the podium why certain public heretics, who pretended to be Catholic but publicly supported abortion, were not formally excommunicated. The speaker replied that excommunication was not the answer. The existence of these public officials was really the fault of the lay faithful who voted the heretics into public office. When a follow-up question asked why the bishops put a supporter of partial-birth abortion on its national lay review board, the startled speaker simply said, “I can’t explain that, I don’t know.” The questioner pointed out that badly informed Catholics could use the American bishops’ action to justify their own vote for heretical politicians. The speaker began repeating over and over, “I can’t explain that, I don’t know.” The question-and-answer period was immediately closed.

Many years ago, when a certain English king declared himself head of the Church in England, all the Catholic bishops and public officials agreed that he was. All but one bishop and one public official. St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More were murdered for not agreeing, and hundreds of lay people followed them to the scaffolds. None of the Catholic bishops or public officials did. The Catholic Church was stripped from England like living flesh stripped from the bone.

In America, in the year 2003, Henry VIII should call his office. Opportunities abound here for men of his energy and vision. Opportunities for his kind abound for a simple reason: we are cowards.

I include myself in this. A decade ago, when I was freshly energized in the faith, I saw a teenage boy, no more than sixteen, looking through the condom section at the pharmacy with his girlfriend. He picked a package up and purchased it. I watched. I said nothing.

A few months later, I saw a couple of young adults from the local university walking hand-in-hand to the Planned Parenthood clinic a block away. I knew where they were going. I let them walk by me. I watched. I said nothing.

I am a coward. The priests described above are cowards. The bishops described above are cowards.

We are cowards. Spineless, craven, lily-livered, yellow cowards, too afraid of our own shadow and public perceptions to accept the crucifixion we are consecrated to live out. When I read of Christ’s betrayal, I don’t have to wonder what Judas was thinking. I look in the mirror, I look at most of our bishops and priests, and I see Judas rationalizing it all away. I have a lot of empathy for Judas when I am playing his part. I am disgusted beyond measure when I see my priests and bishops play the part.

Peter and Judas both betrayed Christ. Scripture explicitly says Judas repented (Matt 27:3), but of Peter, Scripture says only that he wept bitterly (Luke 22:62). We do neither.

The American priests and bishops who do not fight for the Faith have a name for their course of action. It is “collegiality.” They argue that public unity is of the utmost importance, one bishop should not shame another bishop by acting in a way that implies laxity on the part of the other bishop.

This argument would be a remarkable discovery to most of the saints. Take Saint Athanasius, for instance. During the Arian heresy, there were only two bishops in all of Christendom who were not heretics: Athanasius and the Pope. The Arians said Christ was not really God. Athanasius disagreed.

Loudly.

In fact, the man was a public embarrassment. The emperor found him most troublesome. So did all the heretics who occupied various Catholic bishoprics. At their urging, he exiled Athanasius. The people demanded their beloved truth-teller back. The emperor relented. Athanasius came back. He took up where he left off. The emperor exiled him again. The cycle repeated. In fact, the cycle repeated and repeated and repeated. Three different emperors exiled Athanasius a total of five different times, all because the man refused to SHUT UP.

Funny thing, that. The emperors didn’t realize Athanasius was just being collegial.

You see, collegiality means unity, and it is only possible to have unity in the truth. Athanasius was speaking the truth. Thus, although virtually every bishop and every public official unanimously agreed that Athanasius should shut the heaven up, all of these bishops were breaking Catholic collegiality. It was Athanasius, the Truth-Teller, who was being collegial. Why does this situation resonate so strongly today?

You could look at Athanasius alone against the world and get the mistaken impression that he was alone in the college of bishops. He wasn’t. He had in company with him all the bishops who had ever or would ever keep Faith. Remember, the Catholic Church and Chicago have one thing in common: the dead always get a vote. Athanasius had a voting majority according to the rules of the Church. With the democracy of the dead on his side, he swept the election.

Remember Athanasius. Compare his condition to ours. Ours is not the first or the worst the Church has seen. It is not even the first set of heresies that the United States bishops have indulged in.

Remember the recent column on slavery? Remember how the Church railed against slavery throughout her long life? The Church taught against it, but some individual Catholics didn’t. Among the many individual Catholics in Church history, both lay and consecrated, priest and bishop, who personally failed to proclaim the Church’s eternal teaching, among these men who owned slaves or defended slavery, stands a large number of American bishops. The bishops of the United States, in the years prior to the American Civil War, taught nearly continuous error on the issue of slavery. With a few exceptions, they kept insisting that only trade in slaves was un-Christian, that owning them was perfectly acceptable. The American bishops were, on this point, material heretics. As the vehement anti-Catholic, Abraham Lincoln, pointed out, America would pay for every drop of blood spilled because of that most pernicious heresy. We did.

The Spirit blows where He will. Anti-Catholics frequently demonstrate this simply by being publicly right on some issue that the local Catholic community studiously ignores. Here’s another example. Anti-Catholics often get upset with the fact that Catholics call priests “Father”. Now, we have good Scriptural reason to do this, and if this were another column, we might demonstrate those reasons in compelling detail, but let’s leave that for another day. Today, let’s just focus on the word “father” and all that the word implies.

My brother-in-law, a good Catholic father with eight children (seven outside, one inside), recently made a penetrating observation. Every day, every one of his children cry. Every child cries every day until the age of at least seven or eight. Every child. Every day.

Tears, weeping, moaning, gnashing of teeth (whoever has children that do not grind their teeth in the night is blessed beyond measure), the piteous wailing against the rank injustices perpetrated by parents upon innocent waifs who DON’T want to eat their vegetables, who DON’T want to share, who DON’T want to go to bed now, and who MUST have that cookie lest death overtake them and they die un-indulged: these cries permeate the life of a father, the life of a mother, the life of a parent. Every child cries every day. If there are no tears, the father isn’t doing his job.

But, our father stops teaching the truth because he doesn’t want to listen to the angry, wailing phone calls. Our father reinstates the material heretic because his father, the bishop, throws a tantrum. We children, the laity, are reduced to chastising each other because we follow our fathers’ example, the example of bishops who lament Leon Panetta’s public politics while simultaneously honoring him with the authority to officially review their actions.

We should chastise each other for following the example of bishops like this, of “fathers” like this. Sometimes, our priests, our bishops are heretics. And sometimes, they are cowards.

I am the occasional father to three. I am not always a father. Why not? Because you can’t be a father and be a coward. As long as fathers are cowards, children are orphans. And, God forgive me, I am too often a coward.

St. Athanasius, pray for us fathers.

Was the Barque of Peter a Slave Ship?

In October, the Catholic bishops of Africa did an amazing thing. They asked forgiveness for the role played by Africans in the slave trade, both old and new, past and present. With over 150 cardinals and bishops in attendance, the conference acknowledged that slavery was made possible through the complicity of Africans. Note carefully, the bishops apologized in the name of all Africa, not just in the name of Catholic Africans. There’s a reason for this.

Secular commentators like to bash Christianity in general, and the Catholic Church in particular, for being soft on slavery. As Rodney Stark’s For the Glory of God readily demonstrates, they can get away with this only by studiously ignoring the historical facts.

Paul’s Letter to Philemon shows that Catholics have never been very thrilled with the slavery. Paul admits he could order Philemon to release the slave Onesimus, but he instead gives Philemon a chance to exercise Christian charity and release the slave himself, an act he should have undertaken even without Onesimus’ baptism. Given how tightly slavery was woven into the seam of Roman culture and politics, Paul’s approach to dismantling the institution was arguably the only way to detoxify the Empire of slavery’s influence. Following Paul’s example, the Church has always affirmed the slave’s right to be baptized, and has likewise always used baptism as one rationale to remove the baptized from bondage.

Popes and bishops followed Paul’s example through the millenia, constantly chipping away at slavery’s basic core. As slavery declined within the Empire due to rising Christian influence, Christian missionaries focused attention on the pagan north, where slavery was endemic. Indeed, the word “slave” comes from “Slav” precisely because so many Slavs were forcibly enslaved. By the ninth century, Catholic saints were attacking the Viking slave trade. Saint Anselm forbad the enslavement of Christians, and the bishops of tenth-century Venice did public penance for Venetian involvement in the enslavement of Muslims.

Outside of Christian Europe, things were considerably different. Islam’s sword destroyed Christian influence throughout the entirety of the North African coast. As a result, every Moslem territory had slave armies by the mid-800s. Christian boys were forcibly taken from their homes, forcibly converted to and raised in Islam, and then used as the military arm to defend against or conquer other Christians. Thus, even as Christianity dismantled the slave trade in northern Europe, Islam – a word that means “submit” – was re-establishing slavery throughout the southern Mediterranean. There was a reason for this, too.

You see, back, in the early 600’s, Mohammed’s supernatural visitor told him that the Old Testament Scriptures maintained by the Jews and Christians were corrupt. Errors had supposedly crept in, errors which Mohammed’s vision allegedly corrected. One of these errors concerned Abraham, Sarah and Hagar. According to Mohammed, Abraham did indeed have two sons: Ishmael by the slave girl, Isaac by the free woman. But according to Mohammed, Isaac was not the son of the promise. Instead, Ishmael, the son of the slave girl, received the promise of covenant from God. But this covenant isn’t what you think.

All the Jews are descendants of Judah, great-great-grandson of the free woman, while all the Arabs are descended from Ishmael, the son of the slave: on this, Arabs and Jews are in agreement. There is one, radical difference. According to Muslim theology, human beings are to God as a slave is to his Master. God is not Father. He is loving, He is generous, He is bountiful, but He is loving, generous and bountiful as a slave master is to a faithful slave.

The physical and spiritual descendants of the freed man, Isaac, see their relationship to God primarily in terms of family: God is Father, we are His Chosen People, His Family, His sons and daughters. The Psalms, the Prophets and certainly the New Testament are filled with this imagery. In contrast, the descendants of the slave’s son, Ishmael, see their relationship to God primarily in terms of enslavement. The Koran, the Moslem Scriptures, and the Hadith, the story of Mohammed’s life, is filled with slave imagery. These two different images explain all subsequent history.

By the twelfth century, when slavery was essentially unknown in Christian Europe, but well-known through contact with Muslims, Aquinas had declared slavery contrary to justice. However, the discovery of the New World brought the problem back to the forefront for Christianity. Christian conquerers argued that American natives were sub-human savages, incapable of rational thought, and therefore objects of slavery. Rome responded by threatening excommunication on everyone engaged in the slave trade, and sending missionaries to baptize the natives. She wanted to drive home the point: these men and women were not to be enslaved.

However, like today’s abortionists, the “Christian” slavers refused to accept Rome’s commands, and Rome had no troops to enforce her ruling. At the beginning, most of the slavers were Spanish. This should not be a surprise. The Moslems had crossed into and taken over Spain in 611 A.D., the last vestiges of Moslem military presence was only removed in 1492. Indeed, Columbus’ expedition to the New World was funded by the Spanish monarchy as part of their celebration in having finally taken back the Spanish peninsula. But nearly nine hundred years of Moslem occupation had left its mark on the Spanish. They were open to slavery.

The grandson to Isabella and Ferdinand, the Spanish King, Charles V, not only had enormous holdings in the New World, he also owned most of Italy; he had even sacked Rome itself. The Spanish treasury depended on slave labor. So, while pope after pope regularly published decrees against slavery, it didn’t do much good. Anyone who promulgated a papal decree in Spanish territory without the king’s consent, whether in the Old World or the New, was subject to the death penalty. Like Ted Kennedy and Tom Daschle, Charles V was the product of a particular culture.

Though the Protestant Reformation never entered Spain, Spain had her own rebellion, a rebellion that spread wherever Catholic influence was low. In the sixteenth and seventeenth century, the Catholic Church was the only major Christian denomination speaking out against slavery. The British and Dutch had no qualms about it, nor did their Protestant churches make any protests against the practice.

The Church did what she could. Papal influence managed to moderate the Code Noir and Cadigo Negro Espanol, the slave regulations of Spain and Portugal, providing slaves special protections in Brazilian and Spanish territories that were not found in areas under British rule. The Jesuits managed to carve out a Catholic republic for native peoples in South America that lasted for one hundred and fifty years. These native communities, called reducciones, had schools, paved roads, arts, literature, industry and a form of representative government.

The existence of these communities, which were so prosperous that they rivalled the best Spanish and Portuguese communities in the New World, became a thorn in the Spanish side. The Spanish and Portuguese sent armies in to conquer them. The natives, well-taught by the Jesuits in military tactics, defeated both armies. As a direct result, the crowns expelled all Jesuits from Spanish and Portuguese territory in 1758. They eventually conquered and enslaved the inhabitants. Still, Rome continued to speak out against the evil. She had condemned slavery in 873, 1435, 1454, 1537 and 1686. She issued further condemnations in 1839, 1888 and 1889. Slowly, Catholic and Protestant nations prohibited the practice, with the United States lingering longest.

For Muslim countries, life went differently. Muslim slave armies continued to operate in an official capacity as late as 1863, when they were used in Mexico to support the French. Ethiopia and Liberia did not abolish slavery until 1930; Saudi Arabia did not officially abolish slavery until 1962. To this day, the Moslem slave army still operates. Right now, in Sudan, Christian boys and girls are kidnapped as their fathers are killed and their mothers raped to death in front of them. They are enslaved, forcibly converted to Islam, and then made to fight as shock troops in support of Muslim soldiers raiding other Christian communities.

Islamic theology is built on slavery. All followers of Mohammed consciously emulate his life. Mohammed bought, kept, sold and had sex with his slaves. Indeed, he had sex with girls as young as nine. That’s why the age of consent in Islamic countries is nine; that’s why the young girls enslaved in Christian Sudan are raped with Allah’s blessing, that’s why their Christian brothers fight and die procuring more slaves for their Moslem masters, that’s why clandestine slave markets are still found in Moslem countries.

Christ took the sins of the world unto Himself. He died for Jew and Gentile, Christian and Muslim. The slave trade involved both sinful Christians and righteous Muslims. That’s why the Catholic bishops of Africa apologized for slavery in the name of all Africans. Christianity is not about being like Mohammed, it is about being like Christ. That's what sets us free.

There’s really only one thing that can’t be explained.

Why do we sit idle?

Don’t Worry, Be Happy Now

It’s amazing really. From Bach to Eminem, every bit of music is a variation on eight simple notes. The same goes for literature – the Greeks identified roughly a half-dozen different plots, and that’s all anyone has ever used. Unhappiness is the same way. There are only a handful of ways to become unhappy.

Seven Means to Seven Sorrows
My house isn’t as nice as I would like, for instance. It certainly isn’t as nice as Fred’s. If I had Fred’s money, it would probably be as nice, but I don’t. Every day I see Fred get in his nice car, drive away from his nice house and go to his salaried job. Just the thought of it makes my chest ache. I’m not happy.

In fact, I am angry. I am just as good as Fred. Why should Fred get all the breaks? In fact, if the truth be told, Fred couldn’t match up to the same standards I have to meet every day! Certainly the piddling little possessions he has wouldn’t be enough to properly compensate me! They would have to pay me a lot more than he gets if they wanted someone of my caliber. A lot more.

Just thinking about it makes me unhappy. I’ll buy that chocolate in the checkout lane, and get the extra half gallon of ice cream. After all, I deserve it. And tonight, maybe a night out on the town, down at that little strip bar below the hill, while my wife is curled up on the couch, ignoring me and reading another one of her romance novels. The new dancer is supposed to be really cute. A night out, that’s what I need. I’ll be happy if I get a night out down there.

But, no. I wake up the next morning and I am still unhappy. Ah, what’s the use, anyway? I’ll just clock in at work, and sleep through the morning, like I did last week, and the week before that, and… well, you know how it is. No point in helping out at home, either. She grumbles when I help, and she grumbles when I don’t, so I ain’t.

There you have it: the seven ways of being unhappy. Every sin is a variation on one of those themes. If you have ever wondered why sin is so banal, if you have ever wondered why priests say they can’t remember the sins they hear in the confessional, this explains it. Would you be able to remember who told a story like this, especially when you’ve heard it hour after hour, day after day, from every person who walks in your door? The grace isn’t in the priest’s forgetting, it’s in the fact that the priest doesn’t throw us bodily out the door when we begin our agonizingly sad, insipid list of sins.

Envy, anger, pride, greed, gluttony, lust and sloth: these are the seven ways we make ourselves unhappy. There really aren’t any others. But we are so lost in our sins, so fixed upon the unhappy illusion that our sins are somehow special, unique, that we wouldn’t know there are only seven ways to sin, if not for the spiritual equivalent of the Special Forces.

The Special Forces
The Desert Fathers trained hard in demanding environments: deserts, windswept crags, open spaces bare to the fury of the elements. They specialized in spiritual warfare, in identifying the Enemy’s attacks and wiping out his advances. As they fought the Evil One, they discovered a secret that even now he tries to keep secret. They discovered the utter banality of his methods of attack.

He only has seven forms of attack. So the Fathers, like every expert martial artist, not only identified the attack methods, they also identified the seven simple counters that neutralize the attacks. Master these seven counters, and the devil can’t touch you. Instead, he whiffs air every time, while you pummel him and dance away. But, like any martial art, mastering these counters takes training, practice, and the willingness to endure pain. You have to have the grit, the guts, to grin through the pain and win anyway. So, take off your coat and get ready to work.

In the battle for sanctity, sin is a broken bone, a serious, painful setback. We need a hospital. Fortunately, that’s exactly what the Church is. We need treatment. That’s what the liturgy and the sacraments are. A doctor does not treat a broken bone by placing a cast on it for 45 minutes once a week. If we want to be healed, we need to get serious about taking the medicine. Set a broken arm in a cast for six weeks, and no one, not even the patient, can tell that the cast is doing any real good. But it is. Regularly attending to reconciliation, Mass and Eucharist may not feel like it is doing any good. But it is. This is how you can tell.

Combat
Are you envious of Fred’s stuff? Recognize that God allowed him to have all that stuff for a reason. He is the steward of that stuff. If he doesn’t handle it well, he’ll have to answer to God. The Scriptures are filled with stewards who lost their place because they mishandled their master’s wealth. Rejoice that your neighbor is wealthy, help him recognize his awesome responsibility before God. As you help him prosper in grace, he will his wealth wisely, assisting those in need. This joy in another’s good fortune is true love, and love counters envy.

Angry because of misfortune or the shortcomings of those around you? Be kind to them. They aren’t any happier about their shortcomings than you are, and they know your shortcomings better than you do. As you are kind to them and assist them, you fulfill the Scriptures – where one part of the body is weak, another makes it strong. Be kind to them, let them be kind to you. Kindness and compassion counters anger.

Proud of how much better you are than other people? Recognize that every gift you have is on loan from God. He gave it to you, and He expects a return. Fred is steward over a lot of money, you are steward over a different kind of wealth, and you too have to answer to God for how it is spent. Recognize the reality. In fact, that is the definition of humility: to recognize reality and respond appropriately. Humility does not mean being a doormat. It means that you recognize who gave you your gifts, and you recognize that you must use them to help others or be damned. That’s a humbling thought. Humility counters pride.

Do you want more than you need? Whether we seek money, power or respect, we have to be good stewards of what we are given. A good steward makes sure everyone around him lives comfortably. He gives generously, even denying himself if it is necessary. Give the praise to another, the money, the power. Let others shower in it. The generosity of the widow’s mite counters greed.

Do you have consume more food, entertainment or other goods than is necessary? Consider your state in life. Everyone needs material things to get by, but if we have more than we need, we are stealing from those who do not have what they need. For instance, given my state in life I don’t need more than three pairs of shoes. If I have more than three pairs of shoes in my closet, I owe someone shoes. A person in a different state in life might require four pairs, yet another only one. Temperance is accurately assessing your needs and not exceeding them. It requires faith that God will provide: we do not want to build a new barn to hold our stuff, only to find that God demands our life of us this very night. Faith and temperance counter gluttony.

Having difficulty controlling your eyes or your thoughts? Train your eyes as you would train your legs for a race. Practice looking away. Practice identifying idle thoughts and banishing them. Do you always insist on the best? Take less than the best and endure it. Scripture says obedience can only be learned through suffering. If you aren’t suffering, you aren’t learning self-control. Self-control counters lust.

Too worn out to change your life? This is not uncommon, because sloth is, in many ways, the most difficult sin to overcome. Make a conscious effort to attend Eucharistic adoration, do Bible study, say the rosary, meditate on the stations of the Cross. Or, take baby steps: learn about indulgences and do them. A partial indulgence can be obtained simply by making the sign of the Cross, or praying a one-sentence prayer as you work, such as, “Lord, have mercy on me a sinner.” As you perform these little partial indulgences for yourself and for the dead, the grace you win for the world will begin to heal your sloth and energize you. You will have more energy, more zeal, for your prayer life and the sacraments. You will find yourself attracted to sin less and less. Zeal for performing God’s commandments counters sloth.

That’s it. That’s all it takes. Cultivate seven virtues, nurture them through the sacraments, and you will be happy.

God will send the grace. You can do it. So, don’t worry. Be happy.

The Door

No matter what one may think of the philosophy embodied in The Matrix movies, we have to recognize that millions of young adults across the country are being influenced by the way it talks about faith. As we saw last week, while these movies have a pretty skewed understanding of faith in some respects, they also get some aspects of it right.

Last week, we saw how the Wachowski brothers, the creators of The Matrix movies, described faith primarily as an emotion; they specifically denied it had anything to do with reason. We saw why this is wrong: faith is substantially a result of encountering historically accurate facts and correctly analyzing those facts. However, while this logical analysis forms the foundation of Christian faith, there is something more to faith, something that cannot be left out.

“I can only show you the door. You have to walk through.” Morpheus tells Neo this as Neo comes to the realization that he has a profoundly important role to play in the lives of the people around him. In this one sentence summary of what faith means, we can see an echo of the correct understanding of Faith. This is not surprising. Every heresy of the Church is based on a correct understanding of one aspect of Christian doctrine, a correct understanding that uneasily co-exists with several incorrect understandings. This is why heresy is so appealing: it’s almost right.

As we saw earlier, Faith is not an emotion. It gives rise to emotions, but it is not itself an emotion. Faith is just a short-hand word for an accurate analysis of accurate facts. But it is precisely the nature of faith’s facts that raise faith above even the logic and reason that are its foundation.

These facts have two characteristics. To begin with, the facts are not facts we have personally encountered. “Faith comes through hearing,” says St. Paul. Why through hearing? Because the facts of salvation history aren’t anything I’ve seen myself. I didn’t see God part the Red Sea. I didn’t see Him heal the blind man near the pool of Siloam, or talk with the woman at the well. I hear about these facts from other people, people I trust.

I trust these people, almost all of them Semites, most of them Jews, because the story they tell me spans several thousand years and dozens of generations. It is a story that every generation swears to, a vast sea of people together testify that what they tell me is real historical fact. These people are quite honest about their own shortcomings and the shortcomings of their families and friends. They don’t pretend these things happened to them because they are better than everyone else. They just witness: this is what happened.

I see from their testimony that they are like me, at times good, at times evil. I see that both of us strive for a goal we have not yet reached, a goal outside of ourselves, a goal that we cannot reach without help, but that is still somehow within our grasp. I see that we are kin. They do not intend to deceive me. I trust them.

Modern Biblical critics don’t. Many of today’s critics approach the text of Scripture with something called, “the hermeneutic of suspicion”. In other words, people using modern Biblical criticism don’t trust the authors of Scripture, the Semites, mostly Jews, who wrote the words of the text. Though the text is filled with warnings against the lying mouth and the deceiving tongue, these critics explicitly lack faith, even human faith, in the people who wrote the Scriptures. They trust the authors of Scripture less than they trust the gas station attendant who gives them directions to the freeway. Why?

That question is hard to answer. Some people are surrounded by “friends” who regularly lie to them, family members who have betrayed them. Anyone who feels betrayed, especially by a close personal friend, will naturally have a certain unwillingness to trust others, no matter how remote. Such people may even blame God for allowing such betrayal, for allowing men free will, allowing them to choose between being faithful and being traitors.

Indeed, it is possible these critics don’t trust God. Perhaps they’ve never felt God move in their lives. They’ve never found that impossibly good parking space, discovered the $50 bill in their winter coat at the very moment the bill collector called, or rolled through a mile and a half of green lights towards the hospital with their bleeding child in the back seat of the car. Maybe they’ve never felt that preternatural peace infuse their hearts at the very moment they needed it most. Whatever the reason, these critics deny kinship with the authors of Scripture and they deny that we should trust such people.

As a result, the facts that I receive, the testimony I read in Scripture, is not testimony for them. Instead, it is to be considered perjury until such time as the facts can be proven via other witnesses. Even if other witnesses come forward, archeology, anthropology and its brother disciplines, it may not help much. We cannot really trust the testimony of texts written by… these people.

The second characteristic of the facts flows from the first. The facts I see in Scripture have a depth beyond my understanding. I understand what I read, but I sense that there is more. Like a simple math equation that turns out to apply to dozens of wildly divergent disciplines, the facts of Scripture seem to ripple through human experience and pop up in the wildest places. I don’t know why the number pi is found in so many important mathematical equations. I don’t know why the figure of Christ appears in so many great works of visual and literary art, even pagan art. A mystery is something I understand, I just don’t understand it fully. The facts of Scripture are a mystery.

And herein lies the most mysterious aspect of the divine facts that I analyze through the working of Faith. I find that the very mystery of the facts, the very clarity of their analysis, fuels me with a power I would not otherwise have. When I encounter them, I am strengthened. Faith not only shows me the door through logic and reason, it empowers me to walk through the door.

Because the facts are true and the analysis is clear, I, along with every believer, am able to “see” consequences that no one has seen with their eyes. Like a blind man who can “see” the territory around him through his other senses, the infallibility of faith allows me to “know” facts that no one has yet told me. By the fact that God willingly reveals Himself to me, by the fact that He empowers me to see Him clearly through my logic, my reason, and my sense of depth, of mystery, I am willing and able to walk through doors of suffering and privation that I would never otherwise attempt to approach.

Faith is just a short-hand word for accurate analysis of accurate facts, but it brings me to a door. When I see bread crumbs scattered in a line along the forest trail, I “see” that a rational hand must have arranged them on the path, so I follow the trail, eating the bread along the way. However, like the bread crumbs in this example, the facts and the analysis do not just lead to a syllogism. Ultimately, divine Faith is a mystery precisely because, though it begins in an encounter with facts, it leads to an encounter with Persons, the Three Divine Persons who are Infinite Love. And in that encounter, these necessary and useful facts drop to the floor as I am swept up in His arms.

Quite Useless

You would think that anyone who was raised in Chicago with a name like Wachowski would likely know something about the Catholic Faith. After all, Chicago has a larger Polish Catholic population than Warsaw. Sadly, the Wachowski brothers are living examples of a phenomenon the Pope described in his very first encyclical, On Catechesis in Our Time.

You may not be familiar with the Wachowski name, but you almost certainly know their work: Larry and Andy are the brothers who wrote and directed the Matrix movies, along with the accompanying anime shorts which comprise the Animatrix, and the video game, Enter the Matrix. This movie series is one of the top-grossing films of all time; The Matrix was the first film ever to sell more than a million DVDs.

The Matrix movies have an enormous appeal for much the same reason The X Files did: they encourage people to think about mystery and hidden meanings. The convoluted Matrix plots are layered with hidden symbols, secret connections. However, while the way the symbols are used betray the Wachowskis' Catholic education, both the connections between symbols and the dialogue between the characters demonstrate that the Wachowskis never got beyond a grade-school understanding of the Faith.

The media makes a point of emphasizing how brilliant the Wachowski brothers are and the media is absolutely correct. The Wachowski brothers have clearly read a lot of intellectually stimulating books and have used what they read in an innovative and visually exciting way. However, it is just as clear that most of those books weren’t Catholic, that is, most of the concepts are not as logically coherent as one might hope. As a result, what is visually brilliant is logically flawed.

Take, for example, one short speech given by Morpheus, a major character whose early role somewhat resembles that of John the Baptist. He tells Neo, the hero, “Faith is not a matter of reasonability. I do not believe things with my mind. I believe them with my heart… in my gut. You are the sixth and the last. You are the One.” While this is a popular understanding of faith, and certainly the kind of thing one sees in many theology and philosophy books, it is a caricature, not the real thing.

Faith is not an emotion. It may have emotion as a consequence, but faith is not a feeling. Faith is a hard-headed look at the facts. Faith is a cold-sober, objective analysis of reality. Contrary to Morpheus’ misperception, faith is absolutely a matter of reasonability and of logic. It is always fact-based.

Consider a real world example: assume that you have just traveled to your friend’s house in another city. You offer to drive to the store to pick up a bottle of wine and a loaf of bread, but when you get to your car, you find it won’t start. So, you ask your friend where you should have it towed in order to get it repaired, who is a good mechanic in this town? He tells you. As soon as you decide to accept and act on the information he provides, you have demonstrated faith. Let’s see why.

You have faith that the mechanic he directs you to is, in fact, a good mechanic, capable of repairing your car. This faith is not an emotion: it is based on your past experience with your friend, your knowledge that he is reliable and he has never consciously steered you wrong in the past. After all, he is your friend, not your enemy.

Your faith is fact-based, you believe first with your mind, only after with your gut. If the mechanic ends up charging you an exorbitant fee and not fixing your car correctly, your faith in your friend, that is, your past experience with him, the facts of your previous relationship, will tell you that this failure is not your friend’s fault. He did not intend this failure, rather, the injustice was committed by someone who was beyond his influence.

But let’s assume the reverse. Perhaps you know your friend is lousy at differentiating a good mechanic from a bad one. Past experience with his recommendations has demonstrated this. As a result, you don’t have faith in his recommendations: they never panned out before, why should now be any different? In this case, you have faith that whoever he recommends is going to be lousy. You keep this in mind as you page through the phone book. Either way you look at it, faith is about facts.

For a Christian, faith in God, also known as divine faith, is precisely the same thing. It is based on facts: the facts we know from history about God’s interactions with man. We know these facts because we have an historically accurate account of them in a book that is commonly called Scripture. When we study this historically accurate account, we discover that God is reliable. When He tells us He will reward us, He does. When He tells us that, if we keep acting a certain way we will regret it, we find that we do.

The difference between human faith and divine faith lies in the reliability of the facts at hand. Human faith relies on human recollection and recounting of facts. Sadly, we humans sometimes don’t get the facts right, so our hard-headed analysis of those facts, that is, our faith, ends up being mis-placed, wrong. Fortunately, God prevents this error by recounting the facts for us Himself, via Scripture. That way, we know we have a good account of the facts. Our hard-headed analysis of those facts, that is, our faith, will not be misplaced or wrong as long as we don’t make any logical errors in the analysis.

But wait. People do make mistakes in analysis. So, even if we have the facts right, how do we know we haven’t done the analysis wrong? Because one of the historical facts is this: God promises to send us the power to get the analysis right. This power is called grace. God empowers His Church with the grace necessary for a correct analysis of the historical facts. This is the charism of infallibility. The facts are right, the analysis is right. This is divine faith.

Having the facts right and the analysis right leads to an emotion (joy) but the emotion is not faith. It is a consequence of faith. Faith is just a short-hand word for an accurate analysis of accurate facts. Divine faith is the divinely given power to accurately analyze the facts God gives us about Himself.

One logical consequence of this? There is no such thing as blind faith. It’s as ridiculously silly to speak of blind faith as it is to say, “Faith is not a matter of reasonability. I do not believe things with my mind. I believe them with my heart… in my gut...”

The Wachowski brothers, two men who were undoubtedly raised Catholic, wrote the script to The Matrix. They put these nonsensical words into Morpheus’ mouth. Why? Because they never got past a hazy, grade-school level understanding of faith. Instead of studying Catholic faith at an adult level, these two adults walk around trying to live an adult life with an eighth-grade understanding of Catholic concepts. It isn’t a pleasant thing, as I well know. Up through my mid-thirties, I was right there with them. I was a living example of what Pope John Paul II warned of in article 43 of Catechesis in Our Time. For “instruction in the Faith to be effective, it must be permanent. It would be quite useless if it stopped short on the threshold of maturity.”

A lot of time, energy and money was undoubtedly poured into the Wachowski brothers' Catholic education. Unfortunately, their education, like mine and that of many other adult Catholics, stopped short on the threshold of maturity. The Pope’s hard-headed analysis of the facts, his faith, told him what the result had to be.

Without adult education, we can look at all that parochial school instruction and sum it up in two words.

Quite useless.

The Infallibly Dirty Dozen

Councils in the early days of the Church were not quite so easy as today. Not only was travel arduous, disputing bishops were not above threatening physical violence to each other. At the Council of Ephesus, for instance, Cyril of Jerusalem had a bodyguard of sailors, while his opponent, Nestorious, brought gladiators from the circus. Back then, bishops played for keeps.

Ephesus met in order to decide if Mary could be called Mother of God, or if should she just be referred to as Mother of Christ. The faithful already knew the answer. The earliest known prayer to the Virgin Mary is the Sub Tuum Praesidium, “We fly to thy patronage, O Holy Mother of God: despise not our petitions in our necessities, but deliver us always from all dangers, O glorious and blessed Virgin.” It had been in constant use by the faithful for more than two centuries before the council. In fact, large crowds of Catholic faithful gathered around the building where the bishops met, and chanted, “Mary is the Mother of God!” That kind of attention from the faithful seemed to help focus the minds of the bishops.

Catholics are getting out their bullhorns again.

Have you heard about the Planned Parenthood clinic in Texas that isn't being built? It seems one contractor, a good Catholic, has organized every concrete supplier within 60 miles: no one will sell the abortionists the construction materials they need to finish the job. The main contractor just threw in the towel, saying the project could not be finished. Some babies in Texas will owe their lives to a Catholic who got angry and did something about it.

Have you heard of the Dirty Dozen? The shame of being on the list goes to Senators Ted Kennedy (MA), Tom Harkin (IA), John Kerry (MA), Tom Daschle (SD), Christopher Todd (CT), Jack Reed (RI), Patty Murray (WA), Mary Landrieu (LA), Patrick Leahy (VT), Barbara Mikulski (MD), Joseph Biden (DE), and Susan Collins (ME).

These are the Congressmen who simultaneously claim to be Catholic and pro-abortion. A pro-abortion Catholic politician is like a cop on the take - they keep their jobs, but nobody they serve is very happy about it. Their superiors, for whatever reason, can’t or won’t do anything, the cops have “friends” who make sure the community stays quiet, and we in the community are too scared to speak.

Well, the times, they are a’changin’.

For the last several months, the American Life League (ALL) has run full-page ads in major newspapers denouncing pro-abortion Catholic Congressmen as heretics. This may seem harsh. It isn’t.

Pro-life Catholics have tried to be nice to these particular heretics for thirty years. All we got in return was partial-birth abortion and RU-486. If this is winning, how many body bags does it take to lose?

You may wonder where ALL gets the idea that they have the authority to declare someone a heretic. That’s simple. ALL is simply repeating the constant teaching of the Church - anyone who claims to be Catholic has to publicly live their Catholic faith. Insisting that abortion or contraception is compatible with being Catholic is heresy. That’s as nice as one can put it without lying.

The saints would agree. In A Man For All Seasons, Thomas More points out that a certain young man, being a heretic, could not marry his daughter. The young man replies heatedly, “Sir Thomas, now that’s a word I don’t like!” The saint replies with perfect courtesy, “It’s not a likeable word, it’s not a likeable thing,” and sends him home. Sir Thomas lost his head at the block rather than tell a simple untruth. And he wasn’t even a consecrated man.

While the silence from the pulpit has become deafening, the lay faithful are beginning to chant. Check out your nearest major newspaper. ALL is now asking the Catholic bishops of America why they have been silent on the attempt to starve Terry Schiavo to death, why they allowed her to be denied the last rites and viaticum without raising a word of protest to the secular authorities.

These are darned good questions. These are questions the Catholic faithful have a right to ask. And we all have a right to a darned good answer. Heterodox groups are very fond of pointing out, the Second Vatican Council wrote: “The entire body of the faithful, anointed as they are by the Holy One, cannot err in matters of belief.”

Catholic heretics use this as a basis for demanding women priests, a married clergy, changes in the teaching on contraception, and immediate co-equal participation in the procession of the Divine Persons within the Trinity. Well, they haven’t demanded the last yet, but it’s sure to come.

In any case, these same heretics always forget what follows the phrase they lift so carefully out of Lumen Gentium, #12, “They manifest this special [infallible] property by means of the whole peoples' supernatural discernment in matters of faith when ‘from the Bishops down to the last of the lay faithful’ they show universal agreement in matters of faith and morals. That discernment in matters of faith is aroused and sustained by the Spirit of truth. It is exercised under the guidance of the sacred teaching authority, in faithful and respectful obedience to which the people of God accepts that which is not just the word of men but truly the word of God. Through it, the people of God adheres unwaveringly to the faith given once and for all to the saints, penetrates it more deeply with right thinking, and applies it more fully in its life.”

What Lumen Gentium describes is known as the sensus fidelium, the sense of the faithful. It is one of the three infallible expressions of the Magisterium. When Catholic faithful who (1) have a properly formed conscience (2) express the faith as given to the saints, then these same Catholic lay faithful speak infallibly. Bet'cha didn't know you could do that, did ya'?

That’s what makes ALL’s work different from Voice of the Faithful. ALL is simply shouting from the rooftops what the universal Church has always taught, though some particular local bishops have not. The problem with “orthodox” Catholics is that we’re too shy. This is not good. As long as we are shy about speaking the truth, we aren’t really orthodox. There is no opposition between right belief (orthodoxy) and right action (orthopraxy). They inform one another, they need one another. We cannot say we are orthodox if we do not proclaim the Gospel. Silent orthodoxy is not orthodoxy, it is the sin of apathy at best, the condemned heresy of Quietism at the worst.

Some might point out that there is a season for everything under the sun, and it is certainly true that one should not speak out of season. However, thirty years is rather a long winter, and this winter’s plagues have been particularly harsh. We’ve dug a lot of graves because we haven’t stood up to the heretics, because we haven’t given them the names they’ve worked so hard to earn. It is a mark of respect for the man and for the truth to honor every man with the name his work deserves. If we want what the Pope wants - a springtime of evangelization - then we had better join our voices and shout the Gospel from the rooftops.

But remember, shout loud.

Some of our fellow citizens are kind of deaf.

Laughter: The Best Medicine

The United Nations is upset with the Church again.

What a (yawn) surprise.

Recently, Cardinal Trujillo pointed out the obvious: condoms do not protect against HIV. Though he simply echoed the point several dozen secular experts have made for years, namely, that HIV is several dozen times smaller than the smallest holes in a latex condom, and therefore not effective, the press immediately took offense.

The World Health Organization disagreed. “When you use a condom badly so that it breaks or slips or it is past its 'use-by date' it is not very effective," spokeswoman Fadela Chaib said. "Two years ago, in June 2001, there was a big study that reviewed all the literature on male condoms. This study showed that condoms are 90 percent effective against HIV/AIDS infection, and the other 10 percent is when they were used wrongly.”

Unfortunately, the ‘big study” Miss Chaib refers to says nothing of the sort. Open up a new browser window, point it at http://www.niaid.nih.gov/about/organization/dmid/documents/condomreport.pdf and follow along for the fun.

The “Assessment of Data” on page one admits that the scientific literature is inadequate: the experts simply don’t know how effective condoms are in preventing STDs. Certainly Miss Chaib would have bothered to read the first page? But wait. It gets better.

By page 2, the government study is insisting that, though it can’t be certain about how effective condoms are with any other STD, it knows for sure that condoms are effective against HIV. Well, let’s see their reasoning.

The experts collected all the studies on condom use they could find, then examined and compared them in what is called a “meta-analysis”. Note their warnings on pp. 5-6, particularly conclusions 6 and 9. “Most studies” did not provide useful information on condom usage or on exposure to disease. So, they admit their meta-analysis isn’t really based on 138 studies, it’s actually based on just “a few” – how few, they won’t tell us.

By page 9, they admit that most studies they used are older (they don’t include newer, ostensibly higher quality condoms), they rely heavily on user recall of events and self-reporting, and they cannot be considered rigorous. Yet, these older studies tend to be all anyone has. They end by estimating that the newest condoms have only a 3% failure rate, but the statistics they include in their own report tends to corroborate the 10% to 30% failure rate given by the older studies.

Consider: On page 10, the study insists that couples using condoms correctly experience only a 3% failure rate. Their evidence? One rigorous study, consisting of user couples in a long-term monogamous male-female relationship who claimed a perfect use rate showed a 1.1% pregnancy rate for "consistent [condom] use" and a 6.3% pregnancy rate for overall condom use.

First, even a high school science jockey knows that one study does not prove anything. The whole point of science is to replicate results. If other researchers cannot replicate the results then the event didn’t happen, from a scientific point of view.

Second, even assuming this study was done perfectly and can be replicated, the actual pregnancy rate given in the study necessarily means the actual condom failure rate was at least four times higher. After all, sperm can only fertilize an egg that is present, and a woman can only get pregnant for about one week a month, on average. This "one week a month" takes into account that the egg is only able to be fertilized for a period of 24 hours (it disintegrates 24 hours after release), and that sperm can survive in the woman's reproductive tract for between three and five days. This also assumes there are no other problems inhibiting pregnancy: e.g., the man does not have a low sperm count, and the woman doesn't have other biological problems (scarred ovarian tubes, insufficient endometrial lining in the womb, etc.) that prevent implantation, etc.

Thus, if a condom study is using pregnancy rate to demonstrate condom effectiveness, the pregnancy rate is always going to be 1/4th the actual condom breakage, because the egg is only available for fertilization 1/4th of the time. If the experts want to assume that the pregnancy rate correlates exactly to the condom failure rate, they have to assume that condoms only fail when a woman has just ovulated or is just about to ovulate. That is, either condom using couples are only having sex during the woman's fertile period (one week a month), or the condom itself is able to maintain its own integrity when the woman is not fertile, but it somehow senses the woman’s impending ovulation and, unable to cope with the additional responsibility, slips or breaks. Obviously, both of these suppositions are absurd, and no one has ever asserted either of these things to be true.

So, the very pregnancy rates cited in the “one rigorous controlled trial” for "perfect use" condoms require that the actual condom failure rate has to be at least between 4.4% and 25.2%. Worse, these rates can only be this low if we assume all the people in the studies cited are in perfect health and able to conceive - something no one looks at in any condom study. Thus, we can safely assume that the condom breakage rate in the NIH approved study is most definitely higher than 4.4% to 25.2%. This is verified by the next few sentences: according to another study, 14% of couples experience an unintended pregnancy in the first year of use, which means these couples have an actual condom failure rate of at least 64%!

But wait! It still gets better!

The studies cited here are between “long-term monogamous male-female couples.” These couples have the time, the experience and most important, the motivation, to be deliberate and careful about their condom use. They think children will harm their sex lives, and they want to maintain their long-term relationship, so these couples are motivated to use condoms effectively. Will such motivation be present in a one-night stand man, who is moving quickly with the flow of the moment in order to get his new acquaintance's panties off? Will it be true of the homosexual using a "glory hole" in the public restroom, who gets his thrills in the danger of possibly being caught? Myriad other scenarios of a people engaged in similarly less deliberative situations could be brought forward. It seems unlikely that every couple would have the same success rate as a long-term monogamous heterosexual couple, who has a vested interest in not getting pregnant precisely because they want to preserve their long-term relationship and fear that pregnancy would somehow alter that relationship. NIH is cherry-picking their situations to get that 1.1% failure rate, and they know it.

They even admit it. The panel points out on p. 12 that none of the studies considered by the panel evaluated the rate of condom slippage or breakage in persons under 18 years of age. This is rather important, because other studies have repeatedly shown and already established that teenage condom use is associated with alcohol and drug use.

Put another way, teen risk behaviours travel in clusters. Consider the following group of risk-taking activities: smoking, alcohol use, drug use, sex. All researchers agree that if a teen engages in any one of the activities in that group, s/he is also much more likely to engage in at least one other activity in that group - if s/he regularly engages in two activities in that group, s/he is almost certain to regularly engage in three or four. That means that teens having sex are not infrequently going to be drunk or stoned while doing so. Now, what is the likelihood that a drunk or stoned teen will correctly use a condom? The panel deliberately ignored the teen population because it destroys their "condom failure" figures.

Finally, the WHO's own studies indicate that condom use is not all its cracked up to be in terms of AIDS abstinence. The only African nation which has seen not only the relative, but the absolute number of AIDS cases drop, is Uganda. Coincidentally, Uganda is also the only country that does not have a government condom distribution program. The Ugandan government relies on abstinence promotion to reduce AIDS cases.

So, let’s sum up. The experts admit that condom studies don’t prove anything, their own pregnancy rate numbers show a condom failure rate four times higher than they admit to, and they manage to get their low rate only by ignoring both teenage sexual practices and the practices of any other couples whose actual use would increase condom failure figures.

And they wonder why we laugh at them.

Nailing Christ to the Cross

It wasn’t a coincidence.

When Martin Luther decided to nail his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of Wittenburg Castle Church, he chose Halloween to do it. This Augustinian monk held fiercely to many grievous doctrinal errors, but he did understand one thing: the liturgical year of the Catholic Church.

The liturgical year is meant to do two things at once: through it, we cast our eyes back towards Christ’s life on earth and through it we simultaneously cast our eyes forward through the long history of mankind, a history which will be crowned in the Parousia, the Second Coming of Christ. Luther understood this. That’s why he really had no choice. His attack on indulgences had to take place on All Hallow’s Eve. We moderns don’t realize the significance of the day because our seasons are confused.

For instance, we all know that America celebrates New Year’s Day on the wrong day. The new year doesn’t begin January 1st, it begins on the first Sunday of Advent. Advent, of course, is the season during which we meditate on man’s sinfulness and prepare for Christmas. At least, we used to.

Up until World War II, every Christian treated Advent as a time of preparation and repentance. Stockings, ornaments, even Christmas trees, were not erected in any house until Christmas Eve. During Advent, everyone meditated on the world’s wickedness prior to God come in the flesh (past), and prepared themselves for the Last Day, when God comes as Judge (future). For centuries, Christmas was at once both a reminder of the Incarnation, the First Coming, and a reminder of Dooms-Day, Judgement Day, the Second Coming.

That’s why Christmas gifts were exchanged only during Christmas season (which doesn’t start until Christmas Eve). The exchange of gifts not only recalled the gifts of the magi to the Christ child (past), they also reminded us of the wonderful exchange of Divine Persons within the Trinity, the exchange we enter into in Heaven after Judgement Day (future).

World War II changed all that. Because it took six weeks to transport anything by ship over the ocean, Americans were told to buy their Christmas gifts for their sons overseas by Thanksgiving, or their sons would not receive those gifts during Christmas season. American businesses liked the extra income generated by the much longer and earlier selling season – six weeks beats twelve days hands down.

Sixty years of advertising broke two millenia of Christian practice. Halloween has now become the closest thing we have to an Advent season. Advent is now a four-week long Christmas season, and Christmas season is now Purgatory. The season during which we are supposed to celebrate our life in heaven with the Christ child is now the time we pay all the bills.

In Luther’s time, everything was still in its proper order: Death, Purgatory, Judgement Day. Death and Purgatory were recalled first through the commemoration of All Saints’ Day, emphasizing those who died and went straight to heaven, and all Souls’ Day, emphasizing those who died and still had more purification ahead of them.

Purgatory, of course, is not someplace any of us are supposed to end up. God calls each of us to purify our lives of every sin while we are still alive here on earth. Indeed, we are called not only to purify our lives of every sin, but to purify the universe of every consequence of every sin we may have committed. And make no mistake about it: every sin carries a consequence, not just a spiritual consequence, but a material consequence.

When you or I sin, we remove grace from our lives. Grace is power. It is the ability to live life in peace and joy. When we remove this power, we are unable to live life peacefully or with joy. So, no matter how secret my sin may be, because it removes from me the power to be peaceful and joyful, I will be rendered unhappy by my sin. Because I lack the grace of joy, I will inevitably lash out at you, with unhappy word or fist, as a direct consequence of my oh-so-secret sin. Because I am not at peace, each of you who meet me are tempted to relinquish your peace. If any of you do, you will pass the pain along to the people you meet. The effects of my secret, solitary, stone-hearted sin ripple inexorably out into the world, tearing apart more and more lives.

There is good news. When I go to confession, my sins are forgiven and the grace, the power, to be joyful and at peace is restored to me. All I have to do is live it.

There is bad news. Even though my ability to live peacefully is restored, the effects of my earlier sins are still rippling through the world. Others are still being tormented by the consequences of my sin.

There is astonishing news. God expects me to purify the world of these rippling consequences. He gives me the grace to do it through the works of indulgences.

An indulgence is the flood of grace brought into the world through my obedience to Christ and His Bride. It is a somewhat arbitrary obedience that answers for my earlier arbitrary disobedience. God does not owe me this grace, He gives it to me freely, for He knows I cannot clean up the mess I made unless I receive this assistance. The flood of grace from my repeated obediences slows or removes the negative consequences of my past disobediences.

Paul tells us that we are God’s co-workers (1 Cor 3:9). God’s work is the total eradication of sin and all its consequences. Thus, our work is likewise the total eradication of sin and all its consequences. He expects each of us to do our part.

We each learn obedience as Christ did, through suffering (Heb 5:8). Every living man must learn obedience, must clean up his own mess. I can only win the flood of grace, the indulgence, if I am first in a state of grace: my sins must first be forgiven in confession. I can win the flood of grace only for myself, or for those who can no longer obey in the flesh because they no longer have their flesh with them. That is, I can assist those who cannot easily help themselves – the dead.

Some people die in a state of grace, but have not finished cleaning up their mess. This poses a problem. There is only one way to cleanse the world: join in Christ’s suffering. But Christ suffered in His own body. When I am dead, I do not have a body until the Last Day. Because of this crippling lack, my spiritual suffering must do double-duty, for the part of me which is supposed to do the work of suffering, that is, my flesh, is not present to help out. This double-duty suffering is Purgatory.

When I, as a living man, offer indulgences for the dead, I acknowledge that 1 Corinthians 12 is correct: when one suffers, all share the pain. The pain of those in Purgatory is my pain, for the consequences of their sins still affects me – that’s part of the reason they are in Purgatory. But, when my assistance has helped a soul complete the necessary purification, 1 Corinthians 12 likewise applies: when one is honored, all share the glory.

In Luther’s time, All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day were the pre-eminent days for Catholics to remember and apply 1 Corinthians 12. On those days, Catholics flocked to perform indulgences, for they wanted to purify the world of the consequences of sin, they wanted to purify themselves, they wanted to help those who had died complete their purifications.

The weeks between All Hallow’s Eve and the First Sunday of Advent corresponded to the end of the ages. In a few short weeks, the new age would be upon them! In this new age, Christmas-Parousia would be celebrated. Everyone had to prepare, all had to sweep their house clean of leaven, that is, the consequences of sin, and ready themselves for the heavenly banquet, where they would feast on the pure flesh of God.

Sadly, Luther’s badly-formed theology had no place for meaningful human suffering or men as divine co-workers. He rejected both indulgences and purgatory. So, he attacked indulgences at the crucial moment – the moment during the year when men began to prepare themselves to consciously live as divine co-workers.

His attack on Catholic theology may have begun with indulgences, but it ended by destroying the common understanding that God empowers man to sanctify everything, even time itself. Today, what Luther began on Halloween has reached full crescendo. He did attack it at the crucial moment, for the word “crucial” comes from the Latin “crux”, which means Cross. By nailing his attack on indulgences on that door, he crucified the idea that men should share Christ’s sufferings.

Now, especially in America, Christ suffers alone.

Do you want to change that?

Then take back the seasons.

Are YOU my Mother?


Have you heard the news from out west? It seems that Utah had, in 1989, effectively outlawed surrogate motherhood, the practice of conceiving a child outside the womb and implanting him into a genetically unrelated woman. You see, in Utah, the woman who gives birth is listed as the mother, and her husband as the father, regardless of the child’s genetic make-up. In order to become legal parents, Utah residents who used a surrogate had to wait for the surrogate to give up parental rights, and then go through the adoption process. Money exchanges were forbidden. That is mostly gone now – Bruce Jenkins, the US District Court Judge, overturned part of the law so genetic parents can be listed as the legal parents on the birth certificate.

For the whole of human history, the law has always recognized the mother who gives birth and her husband as the rightful parents, even if the husband was known not to have fathered the child. But, in our enlightened age, the wisdom of countless generations must defer to the wisdom of the last fifteen minutes.

“[The genetic parents’] fundamental liberty interests in their parental relationship with their children arises from the fact of the biological parent-child relationship, independent of any grant of right, privilege or designation of status by the state," Jenkins wrote. "Even as it is called upon to consider new questions thrust upon it by the advent of new technology, the legislature, no less than the court, must keep the fundamental liberty interests of the people clearly in mind."

Poor Judge Jenkins. He has no idea how bad this will get.

We have allowed technology to divorce sex from procreation. As both contraception users and abortion supporters like to point out, the decision to have sex is not a decision to have a child.

Alright. Let’s take see how they deal with their brave new world. Let's consider a few of the scenarios our new reproductive freedoms provide us.

We’ll consider an easy scenario first. Imagine identical twin brothers, Joseph and Luke. Luke is an in vitro fertilization specialist. Joseph is a ditch-digger. Joseph gets married. He and his wife, Lucy, decide to have a child. Joseph asks Luke, the doctor, to artificially impregnate Lucy. Dr. Luke readily agrees. Joseph gives Dr. Luke, his sperm, Dr. Luke extracts an egg from Joseph’s wife, fertilizes it with sperm, and implants the child into her womb.

Now, here’s the kicker: who is the father of the child? Is it Joseph, the laborer? Why on earth would he be the father?

After all, Dr. Luke is Joseph’s identical twin. That is, Luke used sperm genetically identical to his own to conceive a child and impregnate Lucy, Joseph’s wife. Sure, he isn’t having sex with Lucy, but sex has nothing to do with procreation, remember? Dr. Luke did everything a father does: he conceived a child with sperm identical to his own (indeed, he could have substituted his own sperm: who would know?) and impregnated Lucy.

Wouldn’t that make Dr. Luke responsible for child support? If not, then why is Joseph responsible for child support? Perhaps Joseph changes his mind after he provides the sperm, but Lucy decides to go ahead and have the child anyway. That means he didn’t even choose to have the child. If a woman can change her mind and have an abortion, why can’t a man change his mind and avoid child support, especially when he isn’t the one impregnating his wife? Isn’t Joseph’s financial considerations part of a “fundamental liberty interest” a la Judge Jenkins?

It may seem a puzzler, but today’s sophisticates will undoubtedly figure out a perfectly just and equitable solution one day. But let us cease from considering such childish trifles as this case and move on to something challenging.

Let’s go back to Joseph and his wife, Lucy. They want to have a child, but Joseph is impotent and Lucy is entering menopause. What to do? Well Lucy gets her friend Henny-Penny to donate an egg and they contract for an anonymous sperm donation in order to get the egg fertilized. Because of the menopause problem, Lucy talks another friend, Broody Hen, into being a surrogate. Broody Hen’s husband, Chuck, is fine with it, because he managed to get Joe to cough up $2500 plus medical expenses for the service. So, now we have two genetic parents, the egg donor and the sperm donor, two surrogate parents, and the two parents who finance the whole operation.

But wait. There’s more. If life begins at conception, the lab tech who fertilized the egg can be considered a parent, as can the doctor who performed the implantation procedure. This child has eight parents.

That’s not too bad. It could be worse. What if Joe were cloning his best friend, Jake, who died recently? The number of genetic parents would increase, because we would now take Henny-Penny’s egg, remove its nucleus and replace it with a nucleus from Jake. Cloning allows us to dispense with the anonymous sperm donor, but we must now consider Jake’s parents, retired and living down in Florida, to be genetic parents of the baby being carried by Broody Hen for Lucy and Joe. After all, they were Jake’s parents the first time, weren’t they?

So, for those who prefer to clone, the child has four genetic parents: the egg cell donor, the nucleus donor and the genetic parents of the nucleus donor. He also has four additional non-genetic parents: the gestational mother, her husband, and the rearing parents, that is, the man and woman (or man and man or woman and woman) who commissioned the child’s creation.

And that doesn’t count the lab techs and doctors who actually create the child in the first place. There’s at least ten parents here.

No question of it: family reunions will have to be potluck.

As the above examples demonstrate, our intellectual sophisticates have fooled themselves into thinking we can divorce sex from procreation. Ironically, the very culture that created the fifty percent divorce rate has conveniently “forgotten” how messy the consequences of divorce are.

Poor Judge Jenkins. It’s a pity he didn’t remember his Shakespeare:

Oh, what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practice to deceive.

The Great Plan

Did Margaret Sanger oppose abortion or support it? The question isn't easy to answer. We can find public expressions of distaste for abortion in many of her writings, but her phrasing in other areas of her work do not carry the same attitude. There is good reason to believe that she did not publicly advocate abortion for the simple reason that she was having a difficult enough time advocating birth control to a recalcitrant public.

Feminists like Victoria Woodhull, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Sarah Norton, and Mattie Brinkerhoffn had all actively opposed abortion virtually within her lifetime (1860s-1870s). The American Medical Society had spent the forty years between 1840 and 1880 getting state legislatures to outlaw abortion. Consequently, American society was much more well-informed and adamantly opposed to the practice at the turn of the century than it would be in the 1960's, when feminists ignorant of their own history foolishly took up the cause before a public who had likewise forgotten why the procedure was made illegal.

Margaret Sanger had two primary goals in life: replace marriage with the public acceptance of sexually libertine adults like herself, and create a race of thoroughbreds through the use of eugenics. Sadly for her, she was up against a much more thoroughly informed society than Gloria Steinem and Faye Wattleton have to contend with. She played the hand she was dealt.

Clearly, she believed the use of contraceptives was the key to accomplishing both of her goals. Unfortunately, the 1873 Comstock laws, passed by a Protestant Congress, forbad the distribution of contraceptives. Medical and public opinion was against both contraceptives and abortion. She had to show that contraceptives should be legalized. The plan she hit upon is the one still used by Planned Parenthood today. She would play one off against the other.

In her public writings, she showed a nearly uniform distaste for abortion ("See? I'm mainstream like you are"). Then she pointed to contraception as the means to help women avoid abortion ("You should be enlightened and compassionate, like me."). That is, she leveraged the public's own abhorrence of abortion to position contraception as an acceptable middle way. Planned Parenthood continues to play this card in exactly this way today. "Without contraception, abortions will increase!" they cry cynically, knowing full well that the increased use of contraception inevitably increases abortion rates. But did she really dislike abortion?

Consider these slips of the pen:

"We know that abortion, when performed by skilled hands, under the right conditions brings almost no danger to the life of the patient ..." --Margaret Sanger. "Why Not Birth Control Clinics in America?" Birth Control Review, Volume III, Number 5 (May 1919), page 10.

"Infanticide did not go out of fashion with the advance from savagery to barbarism and civilization. Rather, it became, as in Greece and Rome, a recognized custom with advocates among leaders of thought and action. So did abortion, which some authorities regard as a development springing from infanticide and tending to supersede it as a means of getting rid of undesired children.

As progress is made toward civilization, infanticide, then, actually increased. This tendency was noted by Westermarck, who also calls attention to the conclusions of Fison and Howitt (in Kamilaroi and Kurnai). 'Mr Fison who has lived for a long time among uncivilized races,' says Westermarck, 'thinks it will be found that infanticide is far less common among the lower savages than among the more advanced tribes.' Following this same tendency into civilized countries, we find infanticide either advocated by philosophers and authorized by law, as in Greece and Rome, or widely practiced in spite of the law, civil and ecclesiastical." - Margaret Sanger, Women and the New Race, Chapter Two.

Chapter Seven of the same book begins "Are overburdened mothers justified in their appeals for contraceptives or abortions?" Unsurprisingly, she goes on to answer, "yes", noting that women have a right to abortion.

We know that Sanger saw birth control as the "pivot of civilization". In Women and the New Race, she describes increased rates of abortion and infanticide as marks of civilized society. Indeed, she spends long passages in the book describing how abortion is extremely common in numerous civilizations. That is, she builds a case for the legalization of abortion on one hand (all civilized countries do it), while decrying it as barbaric on the other.

She will do the same for abortion's medical consequences: in some writings, she claims it is very dangerous. At the same time, she claims the procedure is very common, asserting that between one and two million abortions are performed each year. Now, if abortion is so dangerous, how on earth is it possible that one to two million women a year are having abortions in a country whose population of fertile women is perhaps 20 million? The entire population of fertile women would be dead within a lifetime, if it were true.

She makes these logically contradictory claims for exactly the same reason she publicly opposes abortion. By emphasizing the dangers of abortion and artificially inflating the numbers, she creates a pressing need for a solution, and surprise! She just happens to have the solution at hand: contraception. Today, we would call it "stacking the deck". Once contraception is legalized, the game can be played again. She can even use the same argument. She just emphasizes the word "illegal" this time and point outs that legal abortions would be much safer.

This is all hypothesis, of course. It is possible Margaret Sanger was ambivalent about abortion. It is more likely that she was playing a cynical game in order to get the first part of her agenda in place. We like to think Hitler was an aberration, but he was not. He was a product of the scientific thinking of his age. He did not do anything that hundreds of intellectuals throughout Europe and America had not already suggested. He simply employed the practices recommended by the science of eugenics. Scientists today claim Nazis were unscientific. They weren't - not by the standards of the day. They were perfectly good biologists by the standards of the first twenty years of the 1900s. Hitler shows us the face of science when the guiding force of religion is actively purged away.

All eugenicists are ruthless, and Sanger was a eugenicist. World War II, the general abhorrence of Nazi eugenics policies and the Nuremburg trial declaration that abortion was a crime against humanity threw her timetable off. She spent the forties re-tooling her message for the post-WWII world. It was only after her death that the organization she founded was able to completely put in place the program she envisioned from the beginning: baptizing the genetically unfit into the unholy trinity of sterilization, contraception and abortion.

Democracy at work

Some things just don’t add up. For years, the media has told us that voter turnout is too low, that citizens need to become more interested in electoral processes and legislative agendas, that we all need to vote. “Whatever it takes to bring voters to the polls, that’s what we’ll do,” has been a common theme.

In California, over one hundred citizens took this message so much to heart that they didn’t just vote, they ran for governor. So, how did the public patrons of voter participation describe this response? “One of the most bizarre episodes in recent U.S. political history” warned CNN. “A circus”, bellowed ABC. “Absurd,” cried political commentators across the nation, both liberal and conservative.

You can’t have it both ways.

In a highly individualistic society where everyone is politically active, we would expect to have dozens, if not hundreds, of candidates for every particular office. In fact, if we were really interested in raising voter turnout, we would rig election rules to encourage multiple candidates.

It would be easy to do. The American marketing machine has told us for years that we have a right to have every product exactly the way we want it. Indeed, even our babies have become products; IVF parents now shop around for specific genetic traits. So, why is the ballot box the only place our choice consists of spam or meatloaf? Americans do not shop where we cannot choose. You want people to shop? Then give them what they have been conditioned to expect: endless choice. The California experience brought the highest turnout in years.

In another sense, the recall election was actually rather close to the founders’ vision. For the founders of the country, Cincinnatus was the man to imitate. In 458 B.C., an army was preparing to besiege Rome. Frightened citizens promised to give Cincinnatus dictatorial powers if he would only rid Rome of the threat. He agreed, left his small farm, destroyed the opposing force and returned to Rome where he immediately resigned his dictatorship and got back to farming. He had been in office for all of fifteen days.

He didn’t have to resign. He could have stayed in power and had a formidable political career. He didn’t. That is the kind of selfless service the earliest Americans expected from their leaders. Indeed, that’s why Ohio named one of their towns Cincinnati – as a reminder that his example was supposed to be followed in public life.

America’s founders intended political service to be public service, not self-service. It was never supposed to be a career for anyone. People were supposed to volunteer to serve in much the same way that people gave time to their local church or soup kitchen: not because they got anything back personally, but because it was expected and somebody needed them. Like Cincinnatus, Americans who had useful skills to contribute to a problem were expected to help out by contributing the necessary skills. But they were also expected to return to their real work in a relatively timely fashion. This attitude of service explains why many of America’s early Presidents died either penniless or reasonably close to it. They were away from their real work, and their income suffered accordingly.

Can you remember the last time anyone died penniless as a result of being elected to political office and serving honorably?

Me neither.

Yet, instead of promoting the idea of regular people running for office, the “powers that be” vilify it. The government/media chatter on about diversity being the source of our strength, but they attack it when they see it. Why? Because our educational system, our media, our political system, all of it, is designed to crush real diversity and force conformity. John Gatto’s recent book, An Underground History of Education in America, shows how the field was planted. A century later, we reap the harvest.

Catholics should be concerned. We know how diversity stacks up against conformity. As G. K. Chesterton points out, hagiographies – those remarkable stories the medievals wrote about the lives of saints - had a very practical purpose. By writing them, Christians were attempting to outline a science of holiness. They compiled saint stories for somewhat the same reason the FBI now compiles criminal profiles. The hagiographers were looking for common lifestyle and cultural patterns in the lives of the saints, patterns which ordinary people could use to become holy. Their results were surprising. The only pattern they found was attachment to the sacramental life. Apart from that single thing, the lack of uniformity was stunning. They discovered that holiness is wildly unique and diverse. No two saints are precisely alike in how they achieved it or in how they lived it.

The FBI’s criminal analysis, on the other hand, has discovered quite the opposite. Crime, that is, sin, is banal, common, uniform. Simple observation of a major crime scene is often sufficient to tell us the economic, social and political culture in which the criminal moves, even detailing age, sex, race and personal habits.

So, what the media and the government point to as generators of diversity are exactly the reverse of what really does generate diversity. They point to skin color, economic condition, age, sex. In fact, as the medievals discovered, diversity is actually found in our individual responses to grace, our drive to reach the individual perfections that God enables each of us to achieve by the gift of His grace.

But, since both the media and the government reject theology, they are forced to settle for anthropology, the study of man. Ironically, precisely because they don’t have theology, they not only do not understand God, they cannot understand man, for Christ is the One who reveals man to himself.

Thus, they aren’t really competent in anthropology either. When faced with their own artificially generated diversity – the diversity of over a hundred “Joe Sixpack” candidates for office – they mocked and attacked it. And that clarifies the situation enormously.

They don’t want diversity. What they want from us is banal conformity. We are supposed to know our place, bow to their expertise, and allow them to create their idea of a perfect world for us. After all, if it’s their idea, it must be perfect.

If the California election proved anything, it proved that neither the media nor the government really want voter participation. It’s too dangerous. If real, unique individuals got involved and reached positions of power, they would brand their very uniqueness upon society. That is, they would begin to mend and re-create society’s human law, basing it on the natural law common to every man's heart. As these categories of the divine law were enacted and followed, the sacraments would be more greatly frequented. Grace would flow. Diversity would break out everywhere. And that kind of diversity just isn’t tolerated around here.

Mutual Admiration Society
Back in 1975, Arnold Schwarzenegger apparently indicated a certain admiration for Hitler, “because he came from being a little man with almost no formal education up to power. And I admire him for being such a good public speaker."

The Democrats were quick to pounce. "I don't see how anyone can admire Adolf Hitler," nearly ex-governor Gray Davis told the ABC television show Good Morning America, "Any decent American has to be offended by that phrase." Senator Dianne Feinstein declared, "If this was a man that found Adolf Hitler to be a glorified and acceptable and a desirable character …I don't want that man as my governor.”

Senator Joseph Lieberman, the Democratic presidential candidate, added, “You know, after reading in the paper this morning about the pill popping and skirt chasing and Hitler praising, it would be very tempting to point out Republicans' hypocrisy on values. But would it be right to do? Absolutely." Senator Joe would know a thing or two about hypocrisy. He claims to be an Orthodox Jew, but doesn’t mention Orthodox Judaism excommunicated him during his last presidential run for his support of homosexuality and abortion rights.

And herein lies the source of everyone’s amusement. The Democrats don’t want in a future governor what they happily accept in their physicians, or at least, in their nurses. Planned Parenthood, the darling of both Arnold and his Democratic attack dogs, was founded by ex-nurse Margaret Sanger, an outspoken supporter of Adolf Hitler. There is, of course, one major difference between Sanger and Schwarzenegger. Schwarzenegger condemned Hitler’s actions while admiring skills historians all agree Hitler displayed: he did rise from obscurity with very little formal education and he was a brilliant speaker. Sanger, on the other hand, expressly admired Hitler for what he did. He forcibly sterilized genetic inferiors.

Margaret Sanger, the keynote speaker at a 1929 KKK rally, knew what most people today don’t. Hitler’s philosophy was largely made in America. Darwin, the philosophical foundation of the eugenics movement, was English. One of his major American supporters, Charles Davenport, founded the Eugenics Records Office at Cold Spring Harbor. America was the first country to sterilize “inferior” people. California was the second state to pass a law permitting forced sterilization (1909). Even today, the government’s right to sterilize whomever they please is legally uncontested. After all, the 1927 US Supreme Court Buck vs. Bell decision which expressly gave the state that right has never been overturned.

That’s why German leaders before the court at the Nuremburg trials were mystified. The American prosecutions attacked the Nuremburg laws, laws that forbad inter-marriage between Jews and Aryans. But the Germans had simply modeled their law on the laws of the state of Virginia, which forbad marriage between blacks and whites, laws that the US Supreme Court had upheld. Indeed, one of the men eventually convicted at Nuremburg was the former Harvard Medical School faculty member who drew up New Jersey’s law legalizing sterilization of the “unfit.” The Nazis on trial pointed out that German laws were more liberal than American law: a man was considered black if he had 1/32nd part of “Negro blood” while Germans considered anyone with 1/8th Jewish blood to be Aryan. Certainly, Jews were forbidden to practice medicine in Germany by 1938, but 5000 black doctors were kept out of the American Medical Association in 1939. What, exactly, was the problem?

Margaret Sanger and her associates saw only one, "There is a great danger we will fail because the Negroes think [birth control] is a plan for extermination." In 1939, Sanger advised; "We do not want word to get out that we want to exterminate the Negro population." She recommended getting Negro religious ministers on board. W.E.B. Dubois already supported birth control for eugenics purposes, others could be convinced. The strategy paid off. Planned Parenthood even found Dr. Martin Luther King a willing recipient of the Sanger award. To this day, nearly eighty percent of Planned Parenthood clinics are located in minority neighborhoods.

Planned Parenthood supporters insist that Sanger was just a product of her time, and merely used eugenics as a means to promote her real object, birth control. She was a nice lady who abhorred racism.

While her personal views on anti-Semitism are debatable, she kept Lothrop Stoddard on the board of the Birth Control League, even after he praised Hitler in 1940 for having finally solved the “Jew problem.” One of her numerous lovers was an SS officer. True, Hitler burned her books. But he burned them because they advocated pansexualism, and he was afraid Aryans might start contracepting. He agreed with her birth control philosophy concerning the unfit. She expressly advocated forced sterilization or lifetime incarceration for people she considered of sub-standard intelligence. She expressly noted that “Negroes and Southern Europeans are mentally inferior to native born Americans." Her views never changed.

Margaret Sanger was, to quote “Tailgunner” Joe Lieberman, “pill popping and skirt chasing” for most of her life. She told her granddaughter “as for sex, three times a day is about right” and became addicted to narcotics and alcohol in her final years, dying in a drug-induced stupor.

While Hitler certainly adopted his famous one-armed salute from American football cheerleaders, Schwarzeneggar, Feinstein, Lieberman and the Democrat party have long led cheers for Margaret Sanger and the work of the organization she founded. Sanger advocated abortion, the medical procedure the Nuremburg trials would label “a crime against humanity.” The Nazis, good students of Americans like Sanger, legalized abortion in Germany for the first time, using eugenics as the rationale. Hitler just put into practice what Sanger advocated. What’s not to admire?