Thoughts for the Day

In his homily which focused on the readings of the day [May 3, Feast of Sts. Philip and James], Pope Francis said all Christians who have received the gift of faith must pass this gift on by proclaiming it with our lives, with our word. But, the Pope questioned, “what is this fundamental faith? It is faith in the Risen Jesus, in Jesus who has forgiven our sins through His death and reconciled us with the Father":


"Transmitting this requires us to be courageous: the courage of transmitting the faith. A sometimes simple courage. I remember - excuse me - a personal story: as a child every Good Friday my grandmother took us to the Procession of Candles and at the end of the procession came the recumbent Christ and my grandmother made us kneel down and told us children, 'Look he is dead, but tomorrow he will be Risen! '. That is how the faith entered: faith in Christ Crucified and Risen. In the history of the Church there have been many, many people who have wanted to blur this strong certainty and speak of a spiritual resurrection. No, Christ is alive”.

Pope Francis continued saying that “Christ is alive and is also alive among us”, reiterating that Christians must have the courage to proclaim His Resurrection, the Good News. But, he added there is also another courage that Jesus asks of us:

"Jesus - to put it in stronger terms - challenges us to prayer and says this:' Whatever you ask in my name, I will do so that the Father may be glorified in the Son '. If you ask anything in my name, I will do it ... But this is really powerful! We must have the courage to go to Jesus and ask him: 'But you said this, do it! Make the faith grow, make evangelization move forward, help me to solve this problem... Do we have this courage in prayer? Or do we pray a little, when we can, spending a bit' of time in prayer? But that courage, that parresia even in prayer ... ".

The Pope recalled how we read in the Bible that Abraham and Moses have the courage to "negotiate with the Lord." A courage "in favor of others, in favor of the Church" which we also need today:

"When the Church loses courage, the Church enters into a ‘lukewarm’ atmosphere. The lukewarm, lukewarm Christians, without courage ... That hurts the Church so much, because this tepid atmosphere draws you inside, and problems arise among us; we no longer have the horizon, or courage to pray towards heaven, or the courage to proclaim the Gospel. We are lukewarm ... We have the courage to get involved in our small things in our jealousies, our envy, our careerism, in selfishly going forward ... In all these things, but this is not good for the Church: the Church must be courageous! We all have to be courageous in prayer, in challenging Jesus!".

(Source: News.va)

A Hero We Can Be Proud Of

I know the man seated in the center of the above photo and am honored to call him my friend. His name is Captain Guy Gruters, and he served in the U.S. Air Force as a fighter pilot during the Vietnam War. After flying more than 1,000 successful combat missions, he was shot down and captured by the North Vietnamese in 1967. He spent the next five and a half years enduring the horrific nightmare of a Communist prison camp, including torture, starvation, and psychological pressure, but he refused to betray his country or his honor. He was finally released and returned to the United States in 1973. Now he travels all over the country giving talks about how his Catholic faith strengthened him to persevere through this almost unimaginable trial. His amazing story and his powerful testimony always moves people to tears as well as applause. In the photo above, Capt. Gruters receives a standing ovation from Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin (far left) and top military officials from the National Guard following a recent talk in Milwaukee.

I am very proud of Captain Gruters and deeply grateful for his service to our country. He offers an excellent role model for today's young members of the United States armed forces. He reminds us that faith in God is what inspires true patriotism and heroism.

For more information about Guy Gruters, check out the following link from the U.S. Air Force website:

"Faith in captivity: Vietnam War POW Inspires Airmen"

Also check out Guy's website.

Quote of the Day

To listen to the Lord, we must learn to contemplate, to perceive His constant presence in our lives; we have to stop and talk to Him, give Him space with prayer.

--Pope Francis

Quote of the Day

So it becomes clear that the political will ultimately cannot become effective unless there is in all mankind--especially on the part of the chief supporters of development and progress--a new, deeper moral awareness, a willingness to do without, which is concrete and which for the individual also becomes an acknowledged value for his life.

The question is therefore: How can the great moral will, which everybody affirms and everyone invokes, become a personal decision? For unless that happens, politics remains impotent. Who, therefore, can ensure that this general awareness also penetrates the personal sphere? This can be done only by an authority that touches the conscience, that is close to the individual and does not merely call for eye-catching events.

In that respect this is a challenge for the Church. She not only has a major responsibility; she is, I would say, often the only hope. For she is so close to people's consciences that she can move them to particular acts of self-denial and can inculcate basic attitudes in souls.


--Pope Benedict XVI, Light of the World: The Pope, the Church, and the Signs of the Times (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2010), p. 46.

Quote of the Day

"Faith is first of all a gift that we have received. But to bear fruit, God's grace always requires our openness, our free and concrete response. Christ comes to bring us the mercy of God who saves. We are asked to trust him, to match the gift of his love with a good life, with actions animated by faith and love."


--Pope Francis

Thought for the Day

We must build a civilization of love, or there will be no civilization at all.

--Cardinal Sean O'Malley

What's Wrong with the HHS Mandate?

by Justin Soutar

(Originally published on Intellectual Conservative 4/17/13 at http://intellectualconservative.com/index.php/what-s-wrong-with-the )


On January 20, 2012, under the direction of President Barack Obama, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced an unprecedented new law: As of August 1, 2012, all forms of health insurance coverage provided by businesses to their employees and by not-for-profit organizations to their clients would have to include artificial contraceptives, sterilizations and abortion-inducing drugs. This official announcement aroused an immediate and fierce storm of protest throughout the United States. Catholic bishops, Protestant ministers, Jewish rabbis, hospital owners, charity CEOs, heads of colleges and universities, big and small business owners, state and federal government leaders, and ordinary American citizens all declared in no uncertain terms that they could not possibly comply with such a directive. The reason? It would force them to act in violation of their religious beliefs and moral convictions—and they were not about to blithely discard those sacrosanct tenets.

In response to this massive wave of protest, a few weeks later on February 10, 2012 the HHS announced a “compromise” to its sweeping mandate, in which two “exemptions” were handed to religious believers. First, “houses of worship” (i.e. churches, synagogues, mosques, etc.) would be exempted from the new law. Second, religious institutions that only hire and serve members of their own faith would not be compelled to furnish certain health care items if furnishing such items violated the principles of their religion. However, this “compromise” did little to abate the storm of protest against the new federal contraceptive, sterilization and abortifacient law. The Catholic bishops objected that it failed to adequately address the serious religious liberty issues raised by the HHS mandate. How so? Well, the second exemption to that mandate is extremely narrow and very few religious organizations qualify for it. Whether schools or hospitals or charities, most religious institutions in America are not exclusivist, hiring and serving only members of their own faith. Rather, most are—as they should be—part of the broader society, and as such they hire staff on the basis of merit and serve people on the basis of need, without discriminating on the basis of religious affiliation. So this HHS “compromise” still left an overwhelming majority of religious institutions legally compelled to act against their beliefs.

A few months later, the U.S. Supreme Court completed its review of the encyclopedic Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, which authorized the Obama administration to issue the healthcare mandate in the first place. On June 28, 2012, the Court ruled that the entire Act is constitutional and that the HHS mandate is simply a legitimate exercise of Congressional power to lay and collect taxes. In his written majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts argued that the mandate is not really coercive in violation of the First Amendment because religious entities and business leaders that object to it can choose between obeying the law or paying the tax fines imposed for noncompliance with it. According to Chief Justice Roberts, these fines are not so crippling that they force compliance with the mandate; therefore, the healthcare law leaves religious institutions and business owners still free to act in accord with their beliefs.

This landmark decision was quickly followed by another national wave of public outcry. What was wrong with the ObamaCare ruling? Critics pointed out that, contrary to Roberts’s claim, the tax penalties for noncompliance with the HHS mandate are indeed severely crippling; a religious organization or business that refuses to obey the law will be subjected to fines as high as 15 percent of its annual income or $100 per employee per day. Thus, for a typical institution—be it religious or secular, for-profit or not-for-profit—with dozens or hundreds of employees that refuses to offer contraception, sterilization and abortifacient drugs in its healthcare plan, the tax fines will amount to hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars per year. Fines of these magnitudes will force many religious institutions and businesses across America to shut down. This is precisely why the National Federation of Independent Business took the Obama administration to the U.S. Supreme Court over the PPACA and the mandate—because they are coercive: Businesses are either forced to obey the law or forced to pay unsustainable fines. Furthermore, fines by their very nature are meant to ensure compliance with a law and to deter and punish noncompliance with it. The notion that the healthcare mandate is not coercive is total nonsense. By allowing ObamaCare to stand unchallenged, the Supreme Court left the First Amendment rights of religious institutions and business owners still exposed to the full onslaught of the HHS mandate.

Facing a barrage of more than forty lawsuits in federal courts across the nation—eleven of which had already been decided in favor of the plaintiffs at this writing—the Department of Health and Human Services held out its most recent olive branch to the American public on February 1, 2013, proposing certain “accommodations” to make its controversial healthcare mandate more palatable to the stubbornly religious masses. Although initially the public wasn’t sure what to make of these complex new “accomodations,” Catholic bishops and lawyers were soon sounding the alarm that the newly proposed HHS regulations do little if anything to allay their deep concerns about the mandate’s violation of religious freedom. In an op-ed entitled “Making Sense of Another Ambiguous ‘Compromise,’” Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia warned that the healthcare mandate “remains unnecessary, coercive and gravely flawed.” On EWTN’s news program The World Over Live with Raymond Arroyo, attorney Kyle Duncan of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty flatly dismissed the new “accommodations” as “window-dressing.” And Cardinal Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. bishops’ conference, in an official statement on behalf of all the bishops, declared, “Throughout the past year, we have been assured by the Administration that we will not have to refer, pay for, or negotiate for the mandated coverage. We remain eager for the Administration to fulfill that pledge.”

So what is lacking in this latest “compromise” from HHS? According to Cardinal Dolan, three issues remain unresolved: 1) The federal definition of a religious ministry remains extremely narrow. 2) Nearly all religious institutions are still compelled to fund and facilitate "services" such as contraceptives, sterilization, and abortifacients. 3) No protection is afforded to the conscience rights of for-profit business owners.

We’ve already discussed how the mandate affects religious institutions. But what about religious owners of secular for-profit businesses as well as of nonreligious charitable organizations who object that the HHS mandate violates their personal religious beliefs? No legal exemption from the mandate is afforded them. Lawyers for the Obama administration maintain that secular businesses must comply with it regardless of their owners’ personal religious objections to handing out artificial contraceptives, sterilizations and abortifacients in their healthcare plans. In other words, under the Obama regime it is a crime for a religious person who runs a secular business or not-for-profit organization to do so in line with his or her religious convictions if such convictions prohibit the distribution of abortion pills, contraceptive drugs and/or sterilization procedures. Forcing individual believers to violate their faith is as much an attack on the First Amendment as forcing entire religious institutions to do so.

And what about the conscience rights of that small but significant group of non-religious owners of secular businesses and charitable organizations who object to providing abortifacients on moral rather than religious grounds? Why should they be exempted from the HHS mandate? After all, according to the Obama administration, this healthcare law is driven by “a compelling public interest”: for their own good, the American people must have unrestricted access to abortifacient drugs, birth control pills and sterilization procedures. The answer is that the moral right to refuse to provide abortion-inducing drugs is found in the moral law, also known as the natural law—a set of universal principles of right and wrong which come from God and which are inscribed in the human conscience. This moral law guided the thinking and actions of our nation’s great founders and, together with faith in God according to the Judeo-Christian tradition, served as the framework for our country’s two principal founding documents: the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States.

The Declaration of Independence states: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to ensure these Rights, Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” This solemn statement is becoming all the more remarkable as our nation becomes more secularized, rejecting the firm foundations of religion and morality on which it was built. In this text, our nation’s founders acknowledged as self-evident truths that God created all human beings equal in dignity and endowed them with certain “unalienable” rights, i.e., rights that cannot be taken away, and that the role of government is to protect these rights. The founders knew that the moral law requires respect for the right to life of every innocent human being and forbids murder. They also knew that the Fifth Commandment, “Thou shalt not kill,” is merely a direct external confirmation by God of a law that he had already written in the human heart. Moreover, in acknowledging “Liberty” as an unalienable human right, the founders understood liberty as 1) the freedom to act in accordance with the moral law, and 2) the freedom to practice one’s own religion without government interference. The former aspect—what we refer to today as “freedom of conscience”—was taken for granted by the founders; we refer to the latter aspect as “freedom of religion.”

In our Constitution’s Bill of Rights, the First Amendment states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Having come to this land from Europe, where some theocratic monarchs forced the state religion on their subjects and outlawed the public practice of other religions, our nation’s founders clearly understood that freedom of religion is a fundamental human right that requires legal protection from the opposing threats of single-religion dictatorship and religious persecution. Thus they wisely crafted a law that on the one hand forbids religious compulsion by the government, and on the other hand guarantees the freedom to practice one’s own religion without interference from the government.

The Fifth Amendment to our Constitution protects our unalienable rights to both life and liberty from arbitrary revocation by the government. It states: “No person shall be…deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” This passage, along with most of the Fifth Amendment, was written to protect the rights of criminal suspects. When our nation’s Founders authored this text, they meant that no one could be executed or deprived of his liberty or land without first being publicly tried and convicted of a crime. Unfortunately, some two hundred years later in the infamous Roe v. Wade decision, the U.S. Supreme Court led by Chief Justice Warren Burger deliberately ignored the intent of the Constitution’s authors and, through some incomprehensible twist of logic, arbitrarily reinterpreted the Fifth Amendment due process clause regarding the confinement and execution of criminals to justify legalizing the murder of innocent unborn persons. As a result of this infamous decision, over the last forty years nearly 56 million innocent unborn Americans have been deprived of their unalienable right to life, and with it all their other rights as well. A woman’s supposed “right” to an abortion on demand has no authentic legal basis in the Constitution.

The most fundamental of all human rights—the right to life—as well as the rights to moral and religious liberty are explicitly acknowledged in our nation’s founding documents. By compelling individuals and institutions to help women kill their innocent unborn children regardless of moral objection to an intrinsically evil practice, the HHS mandate violates our sacred rights to life and liberty enshrined in the Declaration and the Constitution. Abortion violates the unalienable rights to life and liberty of the innocent unborn human being in its mother’s womb; therefore, it is both murder and tyranny and constitutes a violation of the Declaration and the Fifth Amendment. The HHS mandate violates not only the unalienable rights to life and liberty of the innocent preborn, but also the unalienable right to liberty of the American people, i.e., their freedom to act in accord with the moral law and with their religious beliefs; therefore, it is both murder and tyranny and constitutes a violation of the Declaration, the First Amendment and the Fifth Amendment.

Abortion is clearly gravely immoral, so the case for refusing to cooperate in it is pretty clear-cut. But would a secular nonprofit or business owner have the right to object to providing artificial contraceptives on strictly moral grounds? The answer is yes, and here’s one good reason: Studies prove that many birth control pills act as de facto abortifacients—instead of preventing the conception of a child altogether, they merely prevent a newly conceived child from implanting in its mother’s uterus, resulting in its abortion. Thus a secular nonprofit or business owner may rightly refuse to provide artificial contraceptives to employees on the ground that this would make him or her complicit in the grave moral evil of abortion.

But even if artificial contraceptives did not behave like abortion-inducing drugs, there would still be another argument for a secular nonprofit or business owner to justify withholding them from his or her employees: The use of artificial contraception by married couples is gravely immoral. Non-Catholics may object that this is exclusively a doctrine of the Catholic Church, not a tenet of the universal moral law. However, it is worth remembering that prior to 1920, every single Christian denomination in the United States taught that the use of artificial contraception by married couples was a gravely immoral practice. In doing so, they rightly stood alongside the Catholic Church in upholding a key truth of the unchanging law of God. The fact that most Christian churches in America no longer teach this, and the fact that most Americans who object to the use of artificial contraception within marriage are now Catholic, does not change the truth of the moral law. It merely demonstrates that only the Catholic Church has continued to faithfully proclaim the truth of the immorality of artificial birth control for use by married couples. If something is immoral it is immoral for everyone of all times, regardless of their religious faith (or lack thereof) and regardless of whether certain churches teach the truth of it or not.

The mission of civil government is to protect the God-given rights of its citizens and to promote the common good of society. Religion and morality are powerful allies in achieving both of these objectives. They are what George Washington referred to as “indispensable supports” of our nation’s liberty, the essential foundations of human society. Atop this foundation of religion and morality, the traditional family is the essential basic unit of human society, the place where new human life is welcomed and nourished and where religious and moral values as well as civic duties are inculcated in the next generation of American citizens. Government has a solemn duty to respect religion, morality and the family and to avoid making any policies that would threaten their wellbeing. A government that dares to attack religion, morality, or the family is attacking the very foundations of human society. The Obama administration has dared to attack all three of these foundations of our republic by issuing a law that violates religious freedom, promotes immorality, and discourages families from welcoming new human life into their midst.

Our nation’s founders prophetically warned that the United States would not long endure without the twin pillars of religion and morality, that is, faith in God and adherence to his moral law. If the people of a nation don’t believe that human rights—especially the rights to life and liberty—come from God, then those rights will be perceived as coming from the state and the state will claim the authority to define their limits and to give or take away those rights as it sees fit. And if people don’t believe that it is morally wrong to deprive an innocent person of his or her right to life or liberty, then human life and liberty will not be respected.

Unfortunately, religion and morality mean nothing to the Obama administration. Its healthcare mandate and other radical policies are grounded in the dangerous philosophy of radical secularism, which is the antithesis of everything our nation’s founders believed and did. The central idea of this philosophy is that human society and politics are better off without God and without the constraints of an unchanging moral law. Unlike today’s radical secularists, those few of our nation’s founders who were nonreligious men were not at all hostile to religion. Benjamin Franklin did not refuse to sign the Declaration of Independence because it mentioned or referred to God in several places. On the contrary, the nonreligious founders warmly supported and encouraged the public exercise of religion, recognizing its key importance to the welfare of the nation. With its outright rejection of religion and moral absolutes, radical secularism is a recipe for national disaster, grimly exemplified in totalitarian regimes such as Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and Maoist China.

Despite the claims of the Obama administration, the HHS mandate has nothing to do with looking after the health of the American public, and it makes no sense whatsoever when viewed from that standpoint. For one thing, with this law the federal government is unnecessarily forcing health insurers to include coverage of an over-the-counter drug that is already inexpensive and widely available. Those who do not object to the use of artificial contraceptives within marriage as immoral can easily purchase them at the nearest drugstore for the price of a small bag of dog food. For another thing, giving women drugs to kill their unborn children is not caring for the health of either mothers or preborn infants, and giving people artificial contraceptives (many of which are de facto abortifacients) and surgical sterilization procedures so that they can’t have children is not health care either. None of these so-called “preventive services for women” are necessary or even beneficial to the health and well-being of American women; on the contrary, they are unnecessary and harmful to both. The negative effects of abortion on the physical, mental and emotional health and well-being of women are now well documented: cancer, pregnancy complications, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, depression, guilt feelings, and suicide. Furthermore, artificial contraceptives have been shown to be harmful to the natural environment; their chemical waste byproducts pollute our nation’s water and soil and end up contaminating our food supply, which also degrades our health. Seen objectively, the HHS order is an irrational and self-destructive national policy of population control: By helping American women to not bear children, it places the future of our entire nation at risk. Leaving aside for the moment all considerations of morality, religious liberty, and constitutionality, these facts alone would render the “healthcare” mandate a grossly irresponsible, foolhardy and unethical decree of the federal government.

So if the HHS mandate is not about health care, what it is about? The answer is: money. The mandate is driven by powerful corporate interests—specifically the abortion, pharmaceutical, and insurance industries—which stand to profit immensely from legally mandated consumption of their products. Unfortunately, these wealthy and influential corporate giants are better represented in Washington, D.C. than the American people themselves are. They have bribed the Obama administration to give them exactly what they want—and they will do whatever it takes to ensure that the “healthcare” law remains firmly in place, no matter how destructive it is to our country.

To summarize: what is wrong with the HHS mandate?

1. It is unpopular. The HHS mandate is being imposed on our nation by Washington bureaucrats in the face of massive and sustained opposition from the American people. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, which gives the Obama administration the authority to issue the HHS mandate, was rammed through Congress and signed into law by President Obama despite the vociferous and well-founded objections of a large majority of his constituents that it failed to adequately protect their moral conscience rights and religious freedoms. Polls taken from 2009 up to today have consistently registered two-thirds of Americans as strongly opposed to ObamaCare, which makes it the most controversial and unpopular reform legislation in American history.

2. It is unjust. Never before in U.S. history has the federal government enacted a law that forces people to violate their moral consciences and religious precepts. Such compulsion is unjust because it infringes on the basic human rights to act in accord with the moral law and with one’s religious faith.

3. It is unconstitutional. The HHS mandate violates our First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion as well as the Fifth Amendment rights of unborn and born Americans not to be deprived of life or liberty, respectively, without due process of law.

4. It is immoral. It is one thing and bad enough for a government to legalize a gravely immoral act such as abortion. However, it is another thing and far worse for a government to legally compel its subjects to violate the moral law. No government has the right to order certain people to help other people do gravely immoral things such as murder their preborn children or render themselves infertile. Yet this is exactly what the federal government under the Obama administration is doing with the HHS mandate: forcing American citizens to participate in the gravely immoral acts of abortion, contraception, and sterilization.

5. It is an attack on religion, morality, and the family—the three basic pillars of human society and national life.

6. It is grounded in the dangerous philosophy of radical secularism, the idea that God and the moral law must be expelled from public life.

7. It is unnecessary. Abortion is not health care, and artificial contraceptives are already inexpensive and widely available for those who do not object to their use.

8. It is destructive to the public health. Abortion is harmful to the health of women, and artificial contraceptives generate toxic waste.

9. It is irresponsible. Preventing women en masse from having children is a recipe for national suicide.

10. It is driven by corporate greed. At bottom, the HHS mandate is nothing other than pork barrel for the abortion, pharmaceutical, and insurance industries.

Since announcing this high-handed and unprecedented “healthcare” directive over a year ago, the Obama administration has utterly failed to grant American religious institutions and business owners the basic freedom to act in accordance with their moral convictions and religious beliefs. The two HHS “compromises” presented thus far, with their narrow “exemptions” and dubious “accommodations,” are mere facades, totally devoid of genuine protections for the religious liberties and conscience rights of the American people. They’re carefully calculated political gestures designed to give the appearance of compromise and intended to weaken public resistance to a law that is immoral, unjust, and unconstitutional—a law that President Obama and his tyrannical accomplices have foisted on our nation without our consent, a law that they have no intention of rescinding or of substantially altering to comply with the First and Fifth Amendments.

The HHS mandate has been and continues to be loudly decried as an attack on religious liberty and the First Amendment, which it certainly is. But even more fundamentally, it is an attack on the moral law and on our right to act in accordance with that law. Perhaps, in our response as Catholic American citizens to the Obama administration’s radical anti-life policy, too much emphasis is being placed on the religious liberty and legal aspects of the issue and not enough on the moral and human rights aspects. The core of the issue is that the mandate forces American employers to purchase and distribute to their employees things that are gravely immoral for use either by pregnant women or by married couples. As Catholics, we need to articulate a more coherent defense of the moral law and of our right to act in accordance with it—defending principles that we hold in common with other religious believers as well as with many atheists and agnostics—in order to combat the insidious propaganda of the Obama administration more effectively.

The HHS mandate is an immoral and unjust law; therefore, we the people of the United States have not only the right but the moral duty to refuse to obey it—and to work for its full reversal. It’s not enough to merely demand further exemptions from the mandate; this approach is inherently flawed because it implies tacit acceptance of an unacceptable law. For the reasons given in this article, the so-called “healthcare” mandate in principle is intrinsically, profoundly and irredeemably flawed, and because of that it must be completely overturned. We must not allow ourselves to become discouraged by the obstacles we face in achieving this necessary goal. We must not give in to a subtle defeatist mentality and cowardly surrender to the mandate as though it were somehow irreversible. Such a dangerous and evil law cannot stand for long without wreaking tremendous havoc on our nation. We the people of the United States must keep up the pressure on the Obama administration to revoke this terrible law—and if it refuses to do so, we must use our heads when we next go to vote and select responsible leaders who will protect and defend our God-given unalienable rights to life and liberty, so that we will once again be “one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”


Copyright © 2013 Justin D. Soutar. All rights reserved.

Quote of the Day

The Good Samaritan by Jan Wijnants (1670)

The topical relevance of the parable [of the Good Samaritan] is evident. When we transpose it into the dimensions of world society, we see how the peoples of Africa, lying robbed and plundered, matter to us. Then we see how deeply they are our neighbors; that our lifestyle, the history in which we are involved, has plundered them and continues to do so. This is true above all in the sense that we have wounded their souls. Instead of giving them God, the God who has come close to us in Christ, which would have integrated and brought to completion all that is precious and great in their own traditions, we have given them the cynicism of a world without God in which all that counts is power and profit, a world that destroys moral standards so that corruption and unscrupulous will to power are taken for granted. And that applies not only to Africa.

We do of course have material assistance to offer and we have to examine our own way of life. But we always give too little when we just give material things. And aren't we surrounded by people who have been robbed and battered? The victims of drugs, of human trafficking, of sex tourism, inwardly devastated people who sit empty in the midst of material abundance. All this is of concern to us, it calls us to have the eye and the heart of a neighbor, and to have the courage to love our neighbor, too. For--as we have said--the priest and the Levite may have passed by more out of fear than out of indifference. The risk of goodness is something we must re-learn from within, but we can do that only if we ourselves become good from within, if we ourselves are "neighbors" from within, and if we then have an eye for the sort of service that is asked of us, that is possible for us, and is therefore also expected of us, in our environment and within the wider ambit of our lives.

--Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth--Part One: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration (New York: Doubleday, 2007), pp. 198-199

Terrorism Strikes Again...

...this time in Boston, Massachusetts, where three innocent human beings were killed and hundreds were injured by two bomb explosions.

This kind of violence is inspired by the Evil One. Nothing can ever justify it. It must be condemned absolutely in the strongest terms. Let us pray for the repose of the souls of those who have died, for healing for the wounded, and for the comfort of the families of all the victims of this terrible crime.

Let us also pray for those who plotted and carried out this abominable act, for their repentance and conversion. And let us continue praying the Rosary for peace in the world.

What is terrorism? Why is it used? Who are the terrorists, and what (if anything) do they hope to achieve by such random acts of violence? What role does terrorism play in the Arab-Israeli conflict? And how can it be effectively combated?

You can get the answers to these and other pressing questions about terrorism--all from a solid, well-researched Catholic perspective guided by Blessed John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI and our Catholic bishops--by reading my book America's Back-Door Enemy: Unmasking the Unknown Terrorists. It's available from Tate Publishing in print for $25.99; as a nine-CD audio book for $40.99; and as an e-book for $15.99. To order your copy direct from the publisher, just click on the image below.


 If you can't afford direct from the publisher, no problem--the book is also available on Amazon for only $19.75.

Thank you for checking out my book or even considering doing so. As our Divine Lord and Savior told us, the truth will make us free. May the Risen Lord bless you and all your loved ones with the gift of His peace.

Quote of the Day

"This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent."
--John 6:29

Quote of the Day

The world is now seen as something rational: It emerges from eternal reason, and this creative reason is the only true power over the world and in the world. Faith in the one God is the only thing that truly liberates the world and makes it "rational." When faith is absent, the world only appears to be more rational. In reality the indeterminable powers of chance now claim their due; "chaos theory" takes its place alongside insight into the rational structure of the universe, confronting man with obscurities that he cannot resolve and that set limits to the world's rationality. To "exorcise" the world--to establish it in the light of the ratio (reason) that comes from eternal creative reason and its saving goodness and refers back to it--that is a permanent, central task of the messengers of Jesus Christ.

--Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth--Part One: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration (New York: Doubleday, 2007), p. 174

A Lesson from the Canary Children

by Justin Soutar


(Published on OpEdNews 3/19/13 at http://www.opednews.com/articles/A-Lesson-from-the-Canary-C-by-Justin-Soutar-130319-232.html
and on Newsvine 3/21/13 at http://justinsoutar.newsvine.com/_news/2013/03/21/17404704-a-lesson-from-the-canary-children )

Book: Autism—Prevention Care and Management: The Plight of the Canary Children and Their Release From Captivity
Author: Marvin D. Anderson, M.D.
Foreword: Sandra Cabot, M.D.
Introduction: Stephanie Cave, M.D., FAACP
Publisher: G.U.D. Publishers, Cedar, MI
Year of Publication: 2012
Formats: Print paperback/E-book
Number of pages: 212
Price: $19.95
Available from: Amazon and at www.autismatabbasplace.com


Autism—Prevention Care and Management is a groundbreaking and important book that should be read by every American concerned about our individual and public health. Although geared primarily to parents and caregivers of autistic children, the book reveals that the current escalating autism epidemic is merely the tip of the iceberg of an impending national health crisis that the American people simply cannot afford to ignore or sweep under the rug.

The book’s author, Dr. Marvin Anderson, is a longtime conventional medical practitioner specializing in internal medicine and in clinical nutrition; he is also a complimentary physician and has ten years of experience caring for children with autism. He draws on this experience, as well as on recent studies and research conducted by his colleagues in the medical and natural health fields, to take a fresh look at the causes of this childhood developmental disorder and what must be done to effectively manage and prevent it.

While it discusses some quite complex topics and issues from an authoritative and well-researched standpoint, this book is written for the average layperson in a simple, direct style and is very reader-friendly. Each of its six chapters is divided into two main sections, one entitled “The Problem” and the other entitled “The Solution.” Under these two general headings, the discussions are broken down into numerous brief subsections, each with its own descriptive subheading, which enables the reader to easily absorb each crucial bit of information presented. Valuable references and resources for further reading are given in the back of the book and sprinkled through the main text. In addition to traditional print format, the book will soon be available from the Apple i-Bookstore as an e-book for iPhones and iPads.

The picture Dr. Anderson presents is as disturbing as it is revealing. It includes a medical establishment and political system blind to the real causes of a growing autism problem and subservient to a mushrooming vaccination industry that puts private profit ahead of the public health. It includes toxic hazardous waste being “recycled” as a filler ingredient in artificial fertilizers which are spread over American cropland daily. It includes food that is nutritionally deficient, genetically modified, and contaminated with antibiotics, pesticides, artificial growth hormones, and chemical additives. And it includes newborn infants with 287 different toxic chemicals in their umbilical-cord blood, more than two-thirds of which have been banned from the American market for years.

Based on authoritative research, Dr. Anderson shows that childhood vaccinations, gastrointestinal disorders, environmental pollution, nutritional deficiencies, and liver problems are all contributing and interrelated factors in the development of autism. He advocates a balanced and reasonable multi-pronged approach to preventing and treating this disorder that includes more careful, patient-specific regulation and use of childhood vaccinations; correcting gastrointestinal disorders through special dietary restrictions and the use of probiotic supplements; growing one’s own food or purchasing organically grown food; and detoxification of the liver.

In Chapter Two, “The Cumulative Effect,” Dr. Anderson criticizes the American medical establishment to which he belongs for failing to effectively recognize and treat the root causes of the growing autism problem. One of these root causes is the administration of more and more childhood vaccines simultaneously at earlier and earlier ages to infants and young children, some of whose immune systems are not sufficiently developed or healthy enough to properly handle this massive influx of foreign microbes into their bodies. The medical community is allowing the ever-growing vaccination industry to determine ever more rigorous childhood immunization schedules without regard to the potentially harmful side effects of these multiple vaccinations on weaker children. After a brief but forthright discussion of the necessity of childhood vaccinations versus their safety and an urgent appeal to his colleagues to face the autism problem head-on, Dr. Anderson makes a novel yet sensible recommendation: the establishment of a new medical discipline devoted to the administration of vaccinations and to the pre-testing of infants and children in order to determine, on a case-by-case basis, which (if any) vaccines should be deferred to a later age or even withheld altogether. Dr. Anderson partly credits the low incidence of autism among the Amish people to their practice of delaying or withholding childhood vaccinations (p. 31).

Also ignored by the conventional medical establishment is a clear link between gastrointestinal disorders and autism. In Chapter Three, “The Enemy Within,” Dr. Anderson reports that upwards of 75 percent of the children whom he has treated suffer from gastrointestinal maladies. He discusses how various problems in the GI tract can affect the brain and cause behaviorial problems, and he stresses the key role of healthy intestinal flora to overall health. He explains that infants who are breast-fed receive beneficial bifidobacteria through their mother’s milk, promoting the development of a healthy intestinal flora in their guts, while infants who are not breast-fed (such as those in neonatal intensive care units) do not receive this healthy bacteria, allowing harmful bacteria to take root and grow in their GI tracts. Dr. Anderson posits that the latter infants are at higher risk of developing autism due to their intestinal dysbiosis and weakened immune systems. Remarkably, he has found that correcting digestive disorders is the most effective initial remedy for his autistic patients.

Furthermore, the medical establishment pays little attention to the role of environmental poisons, such as heavy metals and industrial chemicals, in the ever-worsening U.S. autism epidemic. In Chapter Four, “Dark Skies and Dirty Water,” Dr. Anderson brings to light some shocking and disturbing facts about the pollution of our natural environment, and he notes a link between increasing environmental toxicity levels and rising autism rates. He explains that autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder because it affects the development of the human embryo in utero. One study found almost 300 different toxic chemicals in the umbilical-cord blood of American newborn children across different social strata, although more than two-thirds of these chemicals have been banned from the American market for years (p. 79). Another study shows that of the 2,863 chemicals manufactured in excess of one million pounds daily in the United States, only 12 of them—0.4 percent—have been tested for neurodevelopmental toxicity in accordance with EPA guidelines (p. 80).

Most shocking of all, Dr. Anderson reveals that our farmland is currently and deliberately being poisoned on a massive scale with “recycled” hazardous waste and sewage. He points out that dangerous toxic waste is a standard filler ingredient in the commercially mass-produced artificial fertilizer products constantly being spread over millions of acres by American mega-farmers. In addition, both hazardous waste and sewage sludge from waste treatment plants are being applied directly to our fields. As an extreme example of the latter waste disposal method, Dr. Anderson quotes Diane Olson Rutter of the Rodale Institute: “’A sickening flow of heavy metals, nerve gas residue, dioxin, PCBs, pesticides, industrial solvents, petroleum oils and radioactive plutonium, americium, radium and strontium-90 makes its way from the Lowry Landfill Superfund site southeast of Denver, down 17 miles of pipe, and into the Denver Metro sewage treatment plant. There it joins the city’s domestic and industrial waste and comes out the other end as sludge. Almost unbelievably, this sludge is then used to fertilize wheat’” (p. 86). Dr. Anderson sounds the alarm that this outrageous, immoral, and widespread practice of converting toxic waste into agricultural “fertilizer” is destroying our nation’s farm soil, imperiling the safety of our food supply, and contributing to growing rates of autism and infertility worldwide. He says, “Respected scientists soberly warn us that something must be done if the human race is to survive.”

What can be done to remedy this alarming situation? Dr. Anderson offers two common-sense solutions: 1) Take control of your own food supply, and 2) care for the soil properly by using natural fertilizer (animal manure, humus) and earthworms (vermicomposting). Dr. Anderson points out that autism rates are very low in Amish communities and in Cuba, where natural methods of caring for the soil are used instead of artificial fertilizer (and toxic waste). He also cites an amazing and hopeful discovery by Austrian researchers, who grew organic vegetables in soil contaminated with nuclear fallout from the Chernobyl accident. Remarkably, these scientists found that applying humus-rich compost to the soil before planting resulted in crops completely devoid of radioactivity (pp. 105-106). Dr. Anderson further notes that in Cuba, the incidence of autism is only one in 16,800 despite a rigorous vaccination schedule and high immunization compliance rate. He links this remarkable finding to the Cubans’ natural methods of soil management and plausibly contends that their resulting good nutrition makes their children’s immune systems strong enough to withstand a heavy vaccination load (pp. 107-108).

This leads directly into a discussion of the critical role of good nutrition in preventing and managing autism—a role not fully appreciated by the current medical establishment. In Chapter Five, “Help from the Barn,” Dr. Anderson points out that conventional food crops grown with artificial fertilizer are not only heavily contaminated but also pathetically deficient in the nutrients required for human health and well-being. He also contrasts the extremely low rate of autism among the Amish—one in 10,000—with the skyrocketing U.S. national rate (one in 150 in 2002, one in 88 in 2008; pp. 32, 197), and suggests that the wholesome agrarian lifestyle of the Amish based on their natural methods of soil treatment is what makes autism practically unknown among them. Dr. Anderson then strongly recommends that families of children with autism who are able to do so should purchase their own small piece of farmland on which to live and grow their own clean and healthy food. For families of autistic children who are unable to do this, he says, the next best option is to purchase the best organically grown food available and add nutritional supplements.

In Chapter Six, “The Canary Children,” Dr. Anderson emphasizes that a clean and properly functioning liver is absolutely critical to the health of the immune system and thus to the health of the body in general. He points out that our livers are generally overstressed by environmental poisons and weakened by nutritional deficiencies. Dr. Anderson explains that the underdeveloped livers of many modern infants and young children in particular are being overwhelmed and clogged by the tidal wave of multiple vaccinations, prescription drugs, harmful bacteria, and artificial chemicals coming at them; as a result, their immune systems are compromised and begin to malfunction, leaving their bodies exposed to harmful invaders and leading to autoimmune diseases. Dr. Anderson observes that toxic heavy metals not deactivated by the liver and removed via the excretory system are allowed to circulate in the bloodstream and, due to their fat-soluble nature, are deposited in organs of the body with a high fat content such as the brain, resulting in autism and other serious behaviorial disorders.


Photo credit: Fir0002/Flagstaffotos
Used with permission


Some people may reasonably ask: If all of the foregoing is true, why aren’t all Americans ill? Good question. In the first and last chapters of the book (Chapter One entitled “Sink or Swim”), Dr. Anderson responds that each individual’s health background and biochemical makeup is different and explains how some people, for various reasons, are better able than others to handle the same toxic load. Dr. Anderson warns that the rapidly growing ranks of autistic children in the U.S. today signal an impending national health crisis of unprecedented proportions. Like canaries in a coal mine, these unfortunate individuals are the first victims of our irresponsible agricultural practices and heavily poisoned modern environment—and unless we do something about it soon, our country will be in serious trouble.

Autism—Prevention Care and Management is a powerful wake-up call for the American people to the reality of the health catastrophe our nation is staring in the face unless we have the wisdom and courage to change our agricultural policies, beginning at the grassroots level of the individual person and family. It’s a timely reminder of the truth once stated by FDR that a nation that destroys its soil destroys itself. This book deserves a mass audience and I highly recommend it to everyone.

To order the book, click here.


Copyright © 2013 Justin D. Soutar. All rights reserved.

Thought for the Day

Dear brothers and sisters, let us not be closed to the newness that God wants to bring into our lives! Are we often weary, disheartened and sad? Do we feel weighed down by our sins? Do we think that we won’t be able to cope? Let us not close our hearts, let us not lose confidence, let us never give up: there are no situations which God cannot change, there is no sin which he cannot forgive if only we open ourselves to him.

--Pope Francis

Was Jesus Crucified on Passover?

Reading Jesus of Nazareth by Pope Benedict XVI has been a wonderful experience for me. In this original work, drawing on his deep faith in Jesus, his vast scholarship and his great intellectual ability, our former Holy Father offers profound and beautiful insights into the figure and Person of Jesus as portrayed in the Gospels. Pope Benedict’s remarkable talent for Scripture study is marvelously evident in this three-volume book; he draws brilliant connections between various Scripture passages and truly makes the Scriptures come alive. In summary, I have been greatly enriched through my reading of Jesus of Nazareth, and I would highly recommend this book series to anyone.

In his Foreword to Jesus of Nazareth, Benedict XVI points out that this book is not an exercise of the Church’s Magisterium but rather “my personal search ‘for the face of the Lord’ (cf. Ps. 27:8).” (p. xxiii) He adds, “Everyone is free, then, to contradict me. I would only ask my readers for that initial goodwill without which there can be no understanding.” (p. xxiv) Having gladly given such initial goodwill, I have found very little to disagree with in the book. However, I did find one area where I respectfully disagree with the former pontiff, and that is in his discussion of the dating of the Last Supper and Christ’s crucifixion in relation to the date of the Passover feast (Jesus of Nazareth—Part Two: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2011), pp. 106-115).

In this discussion, Benedict XVI draws attention to the apparent contradiction between the date of Passover as recounted in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) and as recounted in the Gospel of John. He observes that the Synoptics place the Last Supper “on the first day of Unleavened Bread, when they sacrificed the Passover lamb” (Mk. 14:12), and clearly identify the Last Supper as a Passover meal. This meal took place on Thursday evening, which according to the Synoptic chronology was the eve of Passover. Jesus was then crucified the following day, which would have been the very day of the Passover feast. The Pope finds it improbable that Jesus would have been tried and executed on the important Jewish feast day of Passover. As evidence against this hypothesis, he points to a comment from Mark: “He tells us that two days before the feast of Unleavened Bread, the chief priests and scribes were looking for an opportunity to bring Jesus under their control by stealth and kill him, but in this regard, they declared: ‘not during the feast, lest there be a tumult of the people’ (14:1-2)” (pp. 107-108).

Benedict then turns to John’s chronology and highlights the differences between it and the Synoptic chronologies. He says that John goes to great lengths to show that Jesus’ Last Supper was not a Passover meal. He also notes that “the Jewish authorities who led Jesus before Pilate’s court avoided entering the praetorium, ‘so that they might not be defiled, but might eat the Passover’ (18:28)” (p. 108), implying—in contrast to the Synoptic Gospels—that the Passover had not yet begun at the time of Jesus’ trial. According to John’s chronology, therefore, Jesus was tried and executed on the day before Passover, not on the feast day itself. Both the Synoptic and Johannine chronologies agree that the Last Supper took place on Thursday, Jesus’ death on Friday, repose in the tomb on Saturday, and the Resurrection on Sunday. But while the Synoptic accounts explicitly have the Passover feast begin on Thursday evening, John’s gospel implies that it began on Friday evening.

Benedict remarks that, if John’s chronology is correct, the Passover lambs were being slaughtered in the Temple at the same time that Jesus, the true Lamb, was crucified. He observes that this theologically significant connection has led many scholars to write off John’s chronology as a “theological” chronology, deliberately constructed in order to bring out this important theological connection. However, the Holy Father believes that the Johannine chronology is more historically probable than the Synoptic chronologies because it seems unlikely that Jesus would have been executed on the feast of Passover. “On the other hand,” he writes, “Jesus’ Last Supper seems so closely tied to the Passover tradition that to deny its Passover character is problematic” (p. 109).

Benedict notes that attempts have frequently been made to reconcile the Synoptic and Johannine chronologies. He discusses at some length the interesting theory of twentieth-century French scholar Annie Jaubert, who claimed that Jesus celebrated the feast of Passover on a Tuesday evening following an ancient priestly calendar, while the Jewish authorities, following their own calendar, would have celebrated the Passover on Friday evening. Thus the difference between the Synoptic and Johannine dating of Passover can be explained by the use of two different calendars. However, Pope Benedict points out that John’s gospel itself indicates that Jesus followed the same calendar as the Jewish authorities, and he also notes the long tradition assigning Jesus’ Last Supper to Thursday. He concludes: “So while I would not reject this theory outright, it cannot simply be accepted at face value, in view of the various problems that remain unresolved” (p. 112).

Benedict finds a solution to the Passover discrepancy in a meticulous and comprehensive scholarly work by John P. Meier entitled A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus. Concluding that one must choose between the Synoptic and Johannine chronologies, Meier argues that the weight of evidence favors the Johannine version of events. The former pontiff notes that Meier cannot give a convincing explanation for the Synoptic references to a Passover meal, dismissing them as later additions to the gospel texts. Meier claims that Jesus’ Last Supper was not a true Passover meal according to Jewish ritual and calendar, but that it was Jesus’ own personal version of a Passover meal in which he gave himself to his disciples as the true Lamb on the eve of his passion and death. Benedict describes this viewpoint as follows: “Even though the meal that Jesus shared with the Twelve was not a Passover meal according to the ritual prescriptions of Judaism, nevertheless, in retrospect, the inner connection of the whole event with Jesus’ death and Resurrection stood out clearly. It was Jesus’ Passover. And in this sense he both did and did not celebrate the Passover: the old rituals could not be carried out—when their time came, Jesus had already died. But he had given himself, and thus he had truly celebrated the Passover with them” (p. 114).

Personally, I find little reason to doubt the accuracy of the Synoptic chronologies. The Synoptic gospels are straightforward historical accounts of Jesus’ life, teaching, Passion, Death and Resurrection. They were written much closer in time to the events they record than was the Gospel of John. It makes sense, as the Synoptics tell us, that the Last Supper was a real Passover meal taken by Jesus and his disciples on the opening night of the Passover feast. After all, Jesus observed all the major Jewish feast days. The notions that Jesus’ Last Supper was not a genuine Passover meal and did not take place on the eve of Passover I find distasteful, unacceptable and incompatible with the Synoptic gospel accounts. Those accounts also contain significant theological connections. According to the Synoptics, the institution of the Holy Eucharist took place appropriately on the feast of Unleavened Bread. Then on the feast of Passover, the day on which the Israelites were delivered from slavery in Egypt, Christ passed over into the realm of the dead, delivering mankind from the slavery of sin. I believe that Jesus’ trial and execution did actually take place on the feast of Passover as the Synoptics indicate. The chief priests and scribes may have originally planned not to arrest and kill Jesus on Passover as Mark’s gospel relates (14:1-2), but then Judas offered to hand Jesus over to them (14:10-11) and did so at a convenient opportunity, which happened to be the night before the Passover feast. Moreover, a statement by Jesus in Matthew’s gospel seems to confirm that his death would really take place on Passover. Jesus says to his disciples: “You know that in two days’ time it will be Passover, and the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified” (26:2). The way this statement is worded implies two simultaneous events: Passover and crucifixion. It really does not make sense to interpret it any other way. If Jesus was going to be crucified before the Passover, why would he bother to mention the Passover first—or at all? Finally, the Roman governor had a custom of releasing one prisoner chosen by the people on the occasion of Passover (Mt. 27:15); Pilate followed this custom, offering to release Jesus, but the crowds, stirred up by the chief priests and elders, demanded Barabbas’ release instead (Mt. 27:16ff). It makes sense that this amnesty would have been granted on the actual day of the Passover feast.

It’s true that, unlike the Synoptics, John’s gospel makes no mention of Christ’s Last Supper as being a Passover meal. However, John does not therefore deny the Passover character of the Last Supper. He simply chooses to focus on Jesus’ example of humble service in the washing of his disciples’ feet. John fails to mention a great many facts recounted in the Synoptics because his approach is different; his gospel is the “theological” gospel, and his main concern is not to record all the facts of Jesus’ life but rather to present him in all his glory as the Son of God. Also, John prefaces his account of the Last Supper with the words, “Before the feast of Passover” (13:1); this can mean that the Passover feast would occur the next day, that is, Friday.

But how can we explain the statement in John’s gospel that the Jews who led Jesus before Pilate avoided entering the praetorium “so that they might not be defiled, but might eat the Passover” (18:28)? Is this merely a theological device intended to connect Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross with the sacrifice of the Passover lambs? No; this is a simple factual statement, and as such it cannot reasonably be doubted or explained away, even if it seems to contradict the Synoptics. Perhaps this verse from John can be reconciled with the Synoptic accounts in this way. The Jewish feast of Passover is in fact not confined to a single day but constitutes a week-long celebration. True, the principal Passover meal takes place on the first evening of this feast, but the lesser meals taken on the succeeding days are also part of the Passover celebration. The Passover may have already begun on Thursday evening, but the Jews who brought Jesus before Pilate still had to keep themselves ritually pure if they were to continue to eat the Passover feast, which would continue until the following Thursday.

So perhaps there is no real conflict between the Synoptic and Johannine accounts of Christ’s Last Supper and crucifixion in relation to the Passover feast. But even if my explanation of John 18:28 turns out to be inadequate and not well supported, I would still tend to favor the Synoptic version of events, which I find to be historically accurate as well as theologically significant. In the meantime, I will try to keep an open mind pending additional research on this subject.


Copyright © 2013 Justin D. Soutar. All rights reserved.

Quote of the Day

But there is another form of poverty! It is the spiritual poverty of our time, which afflicts the so-called richer countries particularly seriously. It is what my much-loved predecessor, Benedict XVI, called the "tyranny of relativism", which makes everyone his own criterion and endangers the coexistence of peoples...Francis of Assisi tells us we should work to build peace. But there is no true peace without truth! There cannot be true peace if everyone is his own criterion, if everyone can always claim exclusively his own rights, without at the same time caring for the good of others, of everyone, on the basis of the nature that unites every human being on this earth.

--Pope Francis

Quote of the Day

"The vocation of being a "protector", however, is not just something involving us Christians alone; it also has a prior dimension which is simply human, involving everyone. It means protecting all creation, the beauty of the created world, as the Book of Genesis tells us and as Saint Francis of Assisi showed us. It means respecting each of God''s creatures and respecting the environment in which we live. It means protecting people, showing loving concern for each and every person, especially children, the elderly, those in need, who are often the last we think about. It means caring for one another in our families: husbands and wives first protect one another, and then, as parents, they care for their children, and children themselves, in time, protect their parents. It means building sincere friendships in which we protect one another in trust, respect, and goodness. In the end, everything has been entrusted to our protection, and all of us are responsible for it. Be protectors of God''s gifts!

--Pope Francis

March for Marriage

From the Virginia Catholic Conference:

"Next Tuesday, March 26, 2013, several organizations from across the country will join together to stage a National March for Marriage in Washington, D.C. The March presents a significant opportunity to promote and defend marriage and the good of our nation, to pray for our Supreme Court justices, and to stand in solidarity with people of good will. It also complements a Call to Prayer for Life, Marriage and Religious Liberty announced last November by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Joining the USCCB’s Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth, the Virginia Catholic Conference encourages Catholics to attend and support the March for Marriage.


"The March marks the two days --- March 26 and 27--- when the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in two cases related to so-called same-sex “marriage.” Petitioners are asking the Court to rule on the constitutionality of limiting marriage to a union of a man and a woman. Currently nine jurisdictions, including Maryland and the District of Columbia, have redefined marriage to include same-sex relationships.

"Our own Virginia bishops, in their 2006 pastoral letter on marriage, noted that marriage “is inscribed in our human nature.” Further, the U.S. bishops in 2009 pointed to the Second Vatican Council, which reminded us that “marriage is not a purely human institution’’ but one “established by the creator and endowed by him with its own proper laws.” The unique, fundamental meaning and purpose of this universal institution is to unite a man and a woman with each other and with the children born from their union. In fact, government has long recognized marriage because it is the institution best designed to protect children and their families. Those who want to redefine marriage claim marriage exists to satisfy an emotional need or to support voluntary relationships. However, the institution of marriage is not simply one of many alternative kinds of relationships. Rather, it is the very building block of the family and of society. Because of the unique contributions this institution makes to the common good, it must be clearly distinguished from other relationships.

"In 2006, Virginia voters passed a constitutional amendment to protect marriage and prevent legislators and judges from redefining it. The Supreme Court’s upcoming decision could have a profound impact on marriage laws across the nation and could even put individual and organizational conscience rights in jeopardy.

"To learn more about what the Church teaches about marriage, see the USCCB site as well as Marriage: Unique for a Reason.

"The Virginia Catholic Conference encourages all those who are able to attend the March for Marriage on March 26 and provide public witness as well as prayer on this critical issue."

Great idea. Life, marriage, and religious liberty are under attack in our nation today as never before. We Catholics need to stand up for what we believe and join with other people of goodwill to defend the traditional values on which our nation is built. We have the annual March for Life in Washington, and now there will be a March for Marriage.

Thankfully, our Catholic bishops have been doing a fine job of leading this effort to protect the sanctity of human life, traditional marriage, and our religious freedom and moral conscience rights. I think the bishops should go one step further and organize a massive march on Washington for life, marriage, and religious liberty. If it was well organized and well presented, millions of people--Catholic and non-Catholic alike--would attend. This could make an impact similar to that of the civil rights march of 1964: the federal government might actually listen to the people and take meaningful, decisive political action to protect their God-given human rights in response to massive public pressure. Let's hope and pray that this happens in the near future.

Quote of the Day

It was not through the law that the promise was made to Abraham and his descendants that he would inherit the world, but through the righteousness that comes from faith...For this reason, it depends on faith, so that it may be a gift, and the promise may be guaranteed to all his descendants, not to those who only adhere to the law but to those who follow the faith of Abraham, who is the father of all of us, as it is written, "I have made you father of many nations." He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into being what does not exist. He believed, hoping against hope, that he would become "the father of many nations," according to what was said, "Thus shall your descendants be."...That is why "it was credited to him as righteousness."

--Romans 4:13, 16-18, 22

Quote of the Day

"I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."
--John 8:12

A Pope of Surprises

(Note: This is a revised and expanded edition of my previous post.)

Yesterday, on just the second day of the conclave and on the fifth ballot, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, 76, the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Argentina, was elected the 266th Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church, and the 265th Successor of Saint Peter, and has taken the name of Francis. He is the first pope from Latin America, the first Jesuit pontiff, and the first non-European pope in many centuries.


This new pope brings many surprises. For one thing, I did not expect the cardinals to elect a new pontiff so quickly, given that they seemed to lack clear direction in the wake of Pope Benedict's stunning resignation, and the fact that no single cardinal stood out as a clear front-runner going into this conclave. But apparently the cardinals had already begun to form a consensus around a particular candidate when they entered the conclave—a candidate about whom they did not speak openly to the news media. That was a tactful move on their part, and a brilliant way of dealing with the modern world media machine that tries its best to influence the election of the next pope. They allowed journalists to focus on their favorite candidates and indulge in their favorite speculations, and then pulled the rug from under their feet with the quick election of a “dark horse.” It’s plainly obvious that the cardinal electors did not allow the world’s media to influence their decision. That is heartening, and the cardinal electors deserve our great respect and warm congratulations for carrying out their duty so well amid difficult circumstances. In choosing a pope, their solemn responsibility is to follow their consciences and cast their ballot for the man whom they feel is best qualified to lead the Church at this particular moment. And they have taken that responsibility seriously, thanks be to God.

For another thing, I was not expecting this particular cardinal to be elected to the papacy. I did include him on my list of thirty-two papabili (see my recent article, "Who Will Be the Next Pope?") because according to my research he met the qualifications for a serious papal candidate; however, I put him a ways down the list (at #20) because I felt he was a bit of a long shot, mainly because of his age and relative obscurity. I also felt a Latin American pope was less likely than an Italian or other European. But age, nationality, and familiarity with the general public are only secondary considerations for the cardinal electors in choosing a new pope.

Also, I was not expecting a Jesuit pope, but I am nonetheless delighted to see one. I have great respect for the Jesuits because of their high education and faithful service to the Church over the centuries as well as in our own day. They were founded by Saint Ignatius of Loyola to be simple yet highly trained and loyal servants of the pope, and they were forbidden to accept ecclesiastical honors such as being made a bishop, a cardinal, or pope. So it is ironic to have a Jesuit who has accepted all three of these honors. But of course, it is up to the pope to appoint bishops and name cardinals, and he can bestow these honors on whomever he thinks should be given them. And it’s up to the cardinals to elect a pope and to choose the man whom they believe is most suited for that position. Saint Ignatius perceived that the danger in accepting honors is that they can make men proud and arrogant. But even with his great learning, Jorge Bergoglio is obviously a humble man and has remained so, which is why he was given these honors—and why it was appropriate that he should have been given them. He accepted them in humble obedience to the authority of the Church, not out of pride or to advance his ecclesiastical career. His education as a Jesuit will no doubt prove a valuable contribution to the papacy and the Church.

And finally, I was not expecting the new pope to take a name that no previous pontiff has used. I thought he would call himself Pope John Paul III or Benedict XVII or Paul VII or John XXIV or Pius XIII or something like that. But no, he chose Francis. What a beautiful and appropriate name--perhaps in honor of Saint Francis of Assisi, the poor and humble man, and Saint Francis Xavier, the great Jesuit missionary--or perhaps in honor of Saint Francis de Sales, the sixteenth-century "gentleman saint."

This man was unfamiliar to me; I had never really seen him prior to his appearance on the loggia of Saint Peter's Basilica, so I wasn't sure what to expect. When he first came out on the balcony, initially he seemed a little distant and reserved, perhaps even a bit nervous and fearful, as he stood there almost motionless, solemnly facing the massive crowds of cheering people in Saint Peter's Square, acknowledging their applause with an occasional slight wave of one hand. He seemed as stunned as we were by the cardinals’ choice of a pope. Frankly, I felt a bit sorry for him. Just like Cardinal Ratzinger before him, he did not want to be elected pope, and probably did not even expect it. As he stood there before us, clothed simply in the white papal garments with his pectoral cross, he seemed to have the weight of the world on his shoulders—and in a very real sense he did, because the modern papacy is a tremendous responsibility. His rigid and dignified stance reminded me of earlier pre-Vatican II pontiffs.

Then as His Holiness began speaking into the microphone, smiling as he warmly greeted the people in Italian, my apprehensions melted away and I was instantly won over to the new pope. His words of greeting lasted at least a minute, longer than those of the two previous pontiffs. In a thoughtful and respectful gesture, he first directed our attention to his great predecessor, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, and led us in praying an Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory Be for him. I was impressed by how he then bowed down in front of the whole world and asked us, the faithful, to pray that God would bless him before he gave us his first blessing as our new Shepherd in Christ. Once he had done that, he added a few words of farewell, saying he looked forward to seeing the people on Sunday, and wishing them good night.

This is clearly a man of profound humility, simplicity and deep faith, a man of restrained and even temperament who also knows how to communicate with an audience through carefully chosen words and meaningful gestures—a man who, I believe, will evangelize the world mainly through his own powerful example of holiness.

Now that I’m getting to know Pope Francis a little better, and who he was as Cardinal Bergoglio, I realize that my first impressions of this man as being distant and fearful were inaccurate. This is not a bold and outgoing character like Pope John Paul II or a shy and gentle scholar like Pope Benedict XVI. This is a different kind of man altogether: noble and dignified, reserved and correct, with quiet presence, yet nonetheless a man of deep joy, kind and cheerful, who is able to connect with people. He has his own personality and style, and as he stepped onto the world stage as our new pope, he was more or less simply being himself.

I do gather one thing in particular about this man’s unique personality and style from the time we spent waiting for him to emerge after the white smoke and the official announcement of his election, and the time he took on the balcony to greet us and lead us in prayer, and how he lingered a moment before departing. This is a man who is not in a hurry. He takes his time, and is comfortable doing so. And I believe that that sends a very significant message to our modern, fast-paced, highly secularized and materialistic twenty-first-century world, in which we are pressured to rush to get so many different things, that there is something far more important than everything else that is worth not rushing for. It is when we slow down and let go and listen that God can speak to us in the stillness of our hearts. We must have the courage to shut out the world from time to time in order to deepen our relationship with God and allow him to direct our lives towards our heavenly goal.

As I continue to observe the papacy, I’m coming to learn that each pope is unique and has something special to teach us. Pope John Paul II taught us to be bold and fearless in proclaiming the Gospel to the ends of the earth. Pope Benedict XVI taught us the importance of being correctly formed in our faith and of keeping the liturgy and the Second Vatican Council within the proper context of the Church’s rich tradition. And I believe that Pope Francis will teach us how to slow down and listen to the Holy Spirit, as well as how to serve the Lord and one another in simplicity, humility, and charity. His style will take some getting used to, but we will get used to it just as we got accustomed to the style of Pope Benedict XVI before him. I'm sure he will do a fine job of succeeding the two great pontiffs of our time, and will continue leading the Church in the direction it has been taken by Popes John Paul and Benedict.

We are truly blessed to have Pope Francis as our new Holy Father. May God bless him and help him, through the intercession of the Virgin Mary and all the Angels and Saints, to faithfully carry out the task entrusted to him for years to come.


Copyright 2013 Justin D. Soutar. All rights reserved.

Habemus Papam! We Have a Pope!

(Photo credit: AP)

Today, on just the second day of the conclave and on the fifth ballot, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, 76, the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Argentina, has been elected the 266th Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church, and the 265th Successor of Saint Peter, and has taken the name of Pope Francis. He is the first pope from Latin America, the first Jesuit, and the first non-European pope in many centuries.

Wow! Lots of surprises here. For one thing, I did not expect the cardinals to elect a new pope so quickly, given that the cardinals seemed to lack clear direction in the wake of Pope Benedict's stunning resignation, and the fact that no single cardinal stood out as a clear front-runner going into this conclave. But apparently the cardinals took their responsibility seriously and were able to reach a consensus quickly.

For another thing, I was not expecting this particular man to be elected. I did include him on my list of thirty-two papabili (see recent post below, "Who Will Be the Next Pope?") because according to my research he did meet the qualifications for a serious papal candidate; however, I put him a ways down the list (at #20)because I felt he was a bit of a long shot, partly because of his age. I also felt a Latin American pope was less likely than an Italian or other European. But age, nationality, and even precedent are not the primary considerations for the cardinal electors in choosing a new pope. Their solemn responsibility is to follow their consciences and cast their ballot for the man whom they feel is best qualified to lead the Church at this particular moment. And that they have done, thanks be to God.

Also, I was not expecting the new pope to take a name that no previous pope has used. I thought he would call himself Pope John Paul III or Benedict XVII or Paul VII or John XXIV or Pius XIII or something like that. But no, he chose Francis. What a beautiful and appropriate name--perhaps in honor of Saint Francis of Assisi, the poor and humble man, and Saint Francis Xavier, the great Jesuit missionary--or perhaps in honor of Saint Francis de Sales, the sixteenth-century "gentleman saint."

I had never seen this man prior to his appearance on the loggia of Saint Peter's Basilica, so I wasn't sure what to expect. Initially he seemed a little distant and rigid, perhaps a bit hesitant, standing almost motionless, solemnly facing the massive crowds of cheering people in Saint Peter's Square, acknowledging their applause with an occasional slight wave of one hand. His dignified stance reminded me of Pope Pius XII and earlier pre-Vatican II pontiffs. Then as he began speaking into the microphone, smiling as he warmly greeted the people, my fears melted away and I was instantly won over to the new pope. His words of greeting lasted at least a minute, longer than those of the two previous popes. I was impressed by how he bowed down in front of the whole world and asked us, the faithful, to pray that God would bless him before he gave us his first blessing as our new pope. Once he had done that, he added a few words of farewell, saying he looked forward to seeing the people on Sunday, and wishing them good night. This is a man of profound humility and deep faith, a man of restrained and even temperament who also knows how to communicate with an audience through words and meaningful gestures. I'm sure he will do a fine job of succeeding the two great pontiffs before him.

We are truly blessed to have Pope Francis as our new Holy Father. May God bless him and help him, through the intercession of the Virgin Mary and all the Angels and Saints, to faithfully carry out the task entrusted to him for years to come.

Deo gratias!
Laudate Iesu Christe!

As the Historic Conclave Begins...

...My prayer is that the Cardinals will be given the graces they need to follow the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and elect the man whom God wills to lead the Church as the successor to Pope Benedict XVI, the Successor of Saint Peter, the Vicar of Christ on earth.

What an awesome Church we have--the one true Church of Jesus Christ. And what an awesome responsibility is that of the Pope, and that of the Cardinals who must choose him.

Quote of the Day

If there is one fact we really can prove, from the history that we really do know, it is that despotism can be a development, often a late development and very often indeed the end of societies that have been highly democratic. A despotism may almost be defined as a tired democracy. As fatigue falls on a community, the citizens are less inclined for that eternal vigilance which has truly been called the price of liberty; and they prefer to arm only one single sentinel to watch the city while they sleep. It is also true that they sometimes needed him for some sudden and militant act of reform; it is equally true that he often took advantage of being the strong man armed to be a tyrant like some of the Sultans of the East...But the spirit that endures the mere cruelties and caprices of an established despot is the spirit of an ancient and settled and probably stiffened society, not the spirit of a new one.

--G. K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man, 1925

(San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2008, pp. 58-59)

Thought for the Day

"The message of Benedict XVI...is in the end a dramatic appeal to the Church and the world, to each individual: There is no way we can possibly continue as before, he exclaims. Mankind stands at a crossroads. It is time for reflection. Time for change. Time for conversion. And unwaveringly he maintains: 'There are so many problems that all have to be solved but that will not all be solved unless God stands in the center and becomes visible again in the world.'"

--Peter Seewald, Light of the World: The Pope, the Church, and the Signs of the Times (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2010), p. xix.

"Selections from The St. Michael Hymnal" Now Available

My first musical album, "Selections from The St. Michael Hymnal," was released this past week and is now available for sale on the Internet.

This is a two-CD set of instrumental piano music. It features recordings of 48 of the greatest traditional and contemporary Catholic hymns found in The Saint Michael Hymnal, Fourth Edition (Lafayette, IN: Saint Boniface Catholic Church, 2011), an excellent Catholic musical resource that aspires to fulfill the true vision and spirit of Vatican II for Catholic liturgical music and sacred hymns. I highly recommend this hymnal for use in Catholic parishes across the United States. It is available at www.stmichaelhymnal.com.

The CDs are suitable for sing-along purposes for Catholic schools, prayer groups and so forth as well as just for your listening pleasure.
To order your copy of the two-volume set, please click here: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=181092603046

If you would like to order a copy of just Volume I, please click here: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=181091994702

Or, if you'd like to order just Volume II by itself, please click here: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=181092519379

Thank you for your interest. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me at justin_86@ntelos.net.