Article Heritage Series #2: "The Two-Party System: A Catastrophic Failure"

Continuing with my "Article Heritage" series begun last fall, installments of which appear every few months or so, I here present a second article from my early days as a writer. This one, originally written and published in 2007 and entitled "The Two-Party System: A Catastrophic Failure," became my most popular article published that year. It was accepted for publication on five different websites (some "conservative," some "liberal") and generated dozens of reader comments, most of which were positive, a few of which were negative. Furthermore, it was reprinted in its entirety without my permission on a website called "Nigeria Village Square" by a certain Dr. Gary K. Busch, who in addition inadvertently neglected to credit me as the author. When I contacted him to complain about this, he apologized for failing to properly credit me and put my name at the top of the webpage where he ran the article. He added that my article was well written and informative, and that he had re-published it to give it additional exposure. That mollified me somewhat, so I did not insist he remove it from the website. However, this experience did highlight my predicament as a starving writer (which I still am today), since I never received a penny for this article (ditto for most of my other articles).

This article expresses my honest opinions regarding the American two-party political system. In it, I contend that this system has inflicted and is continuing to inflict great harm on our nation by dividing the American people over fundamental moral issues on which our nation is built and on which we should be in agreement; by hampering clear and objective discourse on national issues through the excitement of emotional partisan fervor; and by corrupting politicians of both parties to support big business interests that have nothing to do with the common good of our nation. I point out that our nation's Founders objected with good reason to the establishment of a partisan political system, and argue that the two-party system must be abolished for the good of our country. Reading this article today, I find it still pertinent to our country's current situation, and even (if I may say so) a bit prophetic. Below is the article as originally written, albeit slightly revised to incorporate the emergence of the Tea Party and polished a bit to bring the style more in line with my current authorship standards. Your civil and constructive comments are most welcome.

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The Two-Party System: A Catastrophic Failure

by Justin Soutar May 23, 2007

For a number of years now, respected pundits have lauded the American two-party political system as an excellent balance between the dictatorship of a one-party system and the instability of a multiparty system. Yet the two-party system has done and continues to do our country great harm. The Republican and Democratic parties have divided the American people over fundamental moral values; they have failed to rectify longstanding national problems; and their existence chiefly benefits special interest groups, politicians, and mega-corporate executives. Most unfortunately of all, however, the two-party setup does not represent the people of the United States.

Many people believe that political parties are essential in a democracy such as the United States. These individuals claim that since a democracy encourages dissent and disagreement, it is only natural that such differences of opinion will find expression in organized factions. But this strain of thought clashes with the judgment of our nation’s founders. In his Observations on History, Benjamin Franklin wrote that parties engender confusion. In The Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay warned against the evils to the general public that a “spirit of faction” would cause. And George Washington refused allegiance to any political party during his eight-year service as first president of the United States.

Despite this initial rejection of partisanship, opposing factions emerged at the end of the 1700s representing two different opinions about the role of the federal government. The emergence of these factions marked the beginning of a two-party system that would dominate American politics for the next two hundred-plus years. The Federalists urged a strong central administration that would dominate the states and ensure national unity, while the Republicans believed that the individual states should have more power than the central government. In fact, the form of government officially established by the Constitution was a federal republic, so these parties were emphasizing the importance of either national or state power. Alexander Hamilton became the leader of the Federalist camp, whereas Thomas Jefferson sided with the Republicans—although neither prominent national founder held the rigidly partisan or doctrinaire outlook typical of many American politicians today. Moreover, the chief disagreement of these early parties was over the distribution of power within the United States government. Members of both camps initially saw eye to eye on most moral, economic, social, and foreign policy matters such as slavery, domestic trade, traditional family values, and isolationism.

During the 1800s, the parties evolved and grew further apart, especially over the issue of slavery. Federalists changed their name to Republicans and opposed slavery and the secession of the South, while the heretofore Republicans became Democratic-Republicans and declared support for both slavery and secession. At this stage, one party was championing a grave injustice which most Americans instinctively understood was evil. The Democratic-Republicans received backing primarily from wealthy Southern landowners, who insisted on keeping Negro slaves for cheap labor. After Republican president Abraham Lincoln waged the Civil War, declared emancipation, and brought the South back into the Union, the Democratic Party remained the faction of Southern landlords’ continued rebellion against the North and repression of Black political rights. However, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the Democrats also gained membership from blue-collar workers in Northern cities as the Industrial Revolution created a new underclass. Meanwhile, Republicans attracted backing from the new class of wealthy Northern capitalists and from supporters of African-American civil rights nationwide.

Around the turn of the twentieth century, the importance of economic and foreign policy issues increased. The Republican Party came to stand for Northern farmers, retention of the gold standard, fiscally disciplined government, and isolationism, while the Democratic Party represented Southern landowners and Northern industrial laborers, a flexible money supply, growth of the federal government, and foreign engagement. During the Cold War, the two parties achieved a significant level of bipartisanship, agreeing on the necessity of confronting Communism and promoting freedom abroad. Another major change occurred in the 1960s, when Democratic president Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law. From then onward the Democratic Party took up the “liberal” causes of civil rights and urban workers, leading the “conservative” faction of farmers, limited government and big business—the Republican Party—to dominate the South.

Another element was added to the American political landscape with the social upheavals of the 1960s and the Supreme Court’s decision of Roe v. Wade which legalized abortion in 1973. When a number of Democrats who had favored the abandonment of traditional social and moral values came to realize the bitter failure of those upheavals, they converted into social “conservatives” and found a new home in the Republican Party. President Ronald Reagan emerged as the standard-bearer of these new Republicans, who established their party on the firm foundation of God’s Law and strove to restore our nation’s identity as a Christian country.

The end of the Cold War signaled the arrival of two more simultaneous factional changes. One was President Bill Clinton and the “New Democrats”, who championed unrestricted globalization and free market economics alongside social spending. The other change had been planted during the Reagan administration, hibernated under the Clinton administration, and blossomed fully after the events of September 11, 2001: the ascendancy of neoconservatives within the Republican Party. Led by President Bush, these individuals likewise championed unrestricted globalization and free market economics, but they also demanded an aggressive military response to “Islamic” terrorism with vast increases in military spending and in the size of the federal government, as well as cuts in social spending and foreign economic aid.

Towards the end of the Bush administration, public disapproval of neoconservative excesses and corruption fueled the rise of the Tea Party movement within Republican ranks. This no-holds-barred populist movement, led by Ron Paul and Sarah Palin, earnestly strove to return America to the Judeo-Christian religious and moral principles that made her great. Its platform, solidly grounded in those principles, included strict Constitutional government in line with the intent of the Framers; reversal of Roe v. Wade; drastic reduction in federal government size and spending; elimination of federal budget deficits and reduction of the overall national debt; abolition of the Federal Reserve and income taxes; and opposition to costly foreign wars in the Middle East and elsewhere. With its staunch Christian, pro-life and family values combined with an ethos of limited government, low taxes, fiscal responsibility, and a balanced budget, the Tea Party movement was essentially a reincarnation of the Reagan Republican Party of the 1980s, albeit adapted to the particular challenges facing a new generation of Americans. Tea Party Republicanism gained widespread support and respect from Republican and Democratic Americans alike due to the consistency of its political philosophy, the soundness of its clearly articulated positions, and above all the character and integrity of its leaders. In 2010, a growing wave of public discontent and anger with the recently elected Obama administration and corrupt Washington politicians in both parties swept more than a hundred Tea Party candidates to power in state governorships as well as in the U.S. House and Senate. However, despite strong public support, the Tea Party movement lost its bids for the presidency in both 2008 and 2012 because it allowed the corrupt Republican establishment to dictate the choice of its presidential nominee.

We can learn some important lessons from this condensed review of American partisan history. One reason for the pendulum dynamic of swinging back and forth between the parties is that the country has different needs at different times. After Democratic-Republican President James Buchanan (1857-1861), the American people swung to Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln in 1860 because of his firm stand against slavery and his leadership abilities during a critical time in the nation’s history. In 1932, after four years of Republican President Herbert Hoover, American voters swung to Democratic candidate Franklin D. Roosevelt, opting for increased government spending and control of the economy to mitigate the effects of the Great Depression. In 1980, the voters swung from Democratic President Jimmy Carter to Republican candidate Ronald Reagan in reaction to economic stagnation and other domestic and foreign problems. In 1992, following twelve years of Republican presidential rule, economic recession influenced voters to swing to Democratic contender Bill Clinton. And in 2008, after eight years of Republican President George W. Bush, American voters swung to Democratic President Barack Obama to address the financial crisis as well as health care and immigration reform issues that the Bush administration had not adequately dealt with.

But though our country has different needs at different times, the two major political parties are not the proper instruments to satisfy these needs. According to George Washington, the constant alternation of two parties in the federal government would be a “frightful despotism.” The main reason for this pendulum dynamic, especially in the past few decades, is that neither party is adequately solving the key problems America faces.

Two factors explain this failure. First, each party stands for some of the values and policies America needs. For example, the Republican Party traditionally stands for the right to life of each human person from conception to natural death; a free market economy; limited government; low taxes; a balanced budget; a strong national defense; secure borders; and strict interpretation of the Constitution. The Democratic Party traditionally stands for the rights of the poor, disabled, and elderly to health care and financial assistance; the rights of ethnic and religious minorities to an equal place in our society; abolition of the death penalty and reform of our prison system; fair wages and decent working conditions for employees; common-sense regulation of the economy for the sake of the common good; protection of the environment; the development of clean renewable energy resources; increased economic aid to impoverished countries; and multilateral nuclear disarmament. However, the U.S. really needs both sets of values and policies. We need pro-life laws and prison reform, lower taxes and renewable energy, a free market economy with common-sense regulations—not one or the other.

The second factor explaining the failure of the two-party system is corruption. When a new president is elected, people anticipate that he will get things done. When he fails to meet even reasonable expectations and his administration becomes plagued by scandal (as has happened all too often in recent decades), people turn with hope to the other party, which generally does not improve matters much. This is because most members of both parties have been corrupted by special interests. Our last three presidents have been mega-corporate moguls whose ownership of major industries presented flagrant conflicts of interest. In addition, wealthy and vocal lobby groups have bullied our senators, representatives and president into enacting policies that benefit a few large companies at the expense of the average American citizen.

For example, President Bill Clinton was elected in 1992 on a platform that featured tax cuts, economic growth for everyone, and an ambitious social welfare program. Although the economy did grow, Clinton broke other promises by instituting the largest tax raise in American history, keeping social spending to a minimum, and permitting corporations such as Wal-Mart, Microsoft, and McDonalds to reap the lion’s share of gains. Then in 2000 President George W. Bush was elected on a platform that featured the right to life, tax cuts, free-market economics, secure borders, and fiscal discipline. Although Bush has generally held to his pro-life pledge and did sign into law some token tax cuts, in September of 2006 he declared support for the Plan B contraceptive pills for minors. Furthermore, President Bush has allowed big businesses such as Wal-Mart, Microsoft, McDonalds, Halliburton, Boeing, Verizon Wireless, and News Corporation to choke the “free” market; has pandered to illegal aliens; and ran up the largest federal budget deficits and national debt in American history. Both presidents ended up serving the interests of mega-corporations first and foremost.

The two-party political system does not accurately represent opposing viewpoints of the role of the federal government as it did in the young United States. Though it was a bad idea to begin with, since the latter part of the last century the system has become decrepit with corruption and has fallen sadly out of touch with the average American. Most of the Republican and Democratic candidates allege certain principles and make attractive promises during their campaigns, but upon entering office compromise overtakes principle like a weed and promises are thrown to the wind. Unfortunately, the current corrupt political climate is hostile to honest, traditionally-minded candidates with unwavering principles from Middle America such as Rand Paul, Sarah Palin and Ted Cruz. In general, only those individuals who habitually cater to—or are susceptible to manipulation by—hawkish pressure groups have a chance at federal public office.

Despite the manifest failure of the modern Republican and Democratic parties to deliver, however, most American voters across the map of the United States continue to choose congressional and presidential candidates along major party lines because no viable alternatives are in sight. They feel it is useless to vote for a third party or independent candidate because such a candidate has no real chance of making it into office. These dedicated factional adherents are stuck in the rut of the two-party system. Economics has long vied with fundamental moral convictions as a major factor determining political affiliation. In the US today, richer individuals (who generally dominate rural areas) tend to vote Republican, while poorer individuals (who generally dominate cities) tend to vote Democratic. These choices are based largely on the economic policies and moral positions that the parties stand for and on the hope that new candidates will do a better job than their predecessors. Some Republican and Democratic senators and representatives actually keep their campaign promises and work hard to protect innocent unborn children or help financially struggling Americans, or both, and it is those few exceptions that keep alive what little hope is left in the reigning system.

On the other hand, contented middle-class individuals (who generally dominate suburbs and small towns and comprise a significant minority of the American people) tend to hold a more independent, traditionally-minded outlook and are more likely to spread their votes around based on fundamental moral convictions as well as their common-sense perception of local and national needs. These are the “swing voters” to which enterprising candidates of both parties direct so much of their campaigning energy.

The degree of distinction between the two parties is a matter of controversy. To figure this out, it is helpful to distinguish between theory and practice. In theory, the Republican and Democratic factions are ideological opposites, with Republicans focusing on traditional values and responsibility while Democrats are grounded in progressive values and opportunity. But in practice, thanks to the endemic corruption of the system, there is little difference between parties. Republicans turn out to be not really Republican, and Democrats turn out to be not really Democrats: both sets of politicians operate together in a hazy and confused middle ground defined by special interest groups. This has been clearly demonstrated on a number of occasions, such as the overwhelming Congressional approval for war in Iraq in 2002, the Republicans’ passage of a bill that would have provided federal funds for embryonic stem-cell research involving abortions in 2006, and the refusal of Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to consider impeaching President Bush. All of these decisions were driven by mega-corporations, which stood to profit immensely from them. Even though President Bush vetoed the embryonic stem-cell act, soon afterward he accepted limited access to contraceptive pills for minors in order to mollify the big business executives.

Some might point to these occasions of crossing party lines as examples of bipartisanship. However, selling one’s fundamental principles to money-hungry American firms does not make for true bipartisanship. Real bipartisanship involves consistent agreement on fundamental, non-negotiable moral values such as the right to life and frequent compromise on the wide range of negotiable issues such as national security, economic policy, environmental protection, domestic poverty relief, and foreign aid. But instead of the way things should be, the pressure of the unrestricted free-market ideology has inverted values. Republicans and Democrats treat the negotiable issues as the most crucial of all and generally are absolutely unbending on them, whereas the fundamental moral values elicit disgraceful compromises and persistent disagreement. After all, big business tycoons do not like to have their enormous profits curtailed by the Ten Commandments, and they demand a totally unregulated market in order to reap those profits.

The two-party setup in the United States has severely divided our nation. Having names and labels for different political persuasions can be helpful, but they have too often led to pigeonholing and name-calling which hampers a free exchange of ideas. “Republican” and “Democrat”, “conservative” and “liberal”, “right” and “left” have degenerated into terms used to ostracize and vilify the opposition and to stifle discussion of topics deemed politically incorrect. A private citizen or political candidate who opposes US involvement in foreign wars should not be dubbed a “radical leftist” any more than a private citizen or political candidate who advocates illegalizing abortion should be denounced as a “right-winger”.

Moreover, the true meanings of the terms “conservative” and “liberal” have been obscured. In modern parlance, a “conservative” is someone who defends fundamental moral values and wishes to preserve traditional national ideals, and a “liberal” is someone who disputes fundamental moral values and wishes to radically change our country around. But these meanings are inadequate. The words originally referred to political approaches, not to a person’s moral values or lack thereof. “Conservative” basically means someone who applauds the status quo, while “liberal” means someone who wishes to effect change. Neither conservatism not liberalism is good or evil per se; it depends on what specific policy you wish to maintain or to alter. Continuing a bad policy such as torture of terrorist suspects is just as detrimental to our national well-being as changing a good policy such as the ban on federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research involving abortion would be. Beneficial policies need to be maintained and harmful policies need to be changed. Thus in the original sense of the words, few if any human beings could be described as completely conservative or completely liberal.

Political factions tend to be driven by ideologies that, in their members’ pursuit of particular goals, obscure rather than clarify the truth. Indeed, truth itself has been politicized. Inconvenient truths (such as the inability of embryonic stem-cells to cure diseases) are derided as falsehood, while falsehoods that make a few people rich (such as the impossibility of conducting a dialogue with terrorists) are glorified as absolute truth. Nowhere are these destructive elements of partisan politics more evident than in the meteoric rise of the neoconservative ideology following the terrorist attacks of September 11. This intolerant, extremist, and totalitarian belief system seems to have become a religion for many people, yet it is a deception that worships the false gods of national security and an unfettered free market. It was cunningly crafted by a handful of rich American tycoons to justify an aggressive foreign policy that enables them to engage in the age-old practice of war profiteering, to expand their globalized business operations across the world, and to exploit more and more human beings without hindrance. In contravention of history, it insists that terrorism is an act of war rather than a criminal tactic employed to draw a government’s attention to real grievances, and that only all-out armed force can “defeat” terrorism. Its view of the terrorist threat is based on mistaken assumptions, numerous fallacies, and blanket denials of many important facts that contradict their view.

Although it masquerades as patriotic, the neoconservative ideology and its loyal adherents have done tremendous harm to the American political landscape. Neoconservatives have viciously attacked their opponents, twisted moral values, and used false guilt to silence opposition. They are utilizing the ancient strategy of divide and conquer to destroy American public debate and ultimately to dominate the world. Their ability to find common ground with Americans of other opinions on negotiable issues is nil. In the pursuit of greed and power, they are willing to exacerbate partisan divisions among the American people and make them forget their nonpartisan heritage.

According to our nation’s founders, it would be better to have no political parties at all. Individuals should form their opinion on each individual negotiable matter through a careful review of all the relevant facts and without pressure from a corporate-controlled media, comfortable politicians, wealthy pundits, celebrities, or mega-corporate leaders. If that were to happen, if Americans were to discard ideologies and agree on the fundamental moral values, they would find much common ground on the negotiable issues. Instead of constant bickering and division, we would begin to experience true reconciliation and unity.

With each Congressional partisan victory and each new presidential administration, the newly elected have vowed to make a fresh start precisely because the previous faction led America to a dead end. The Democratic Party is now taking advantage of the myriad failures of the Bush administration and of Congressional Republicans to shore up their image as the faction that America desperately needs, the party that will rescue Americans from the clutches of right-wing insanity and deliver than a brighter future in 2009. For Americans weary of Republican mistakes and desirous of substantial changes in many political areas, the carrot held out by Democratic candidates looks tempting. It would be easy to accept this carrot and elect Democrats to Congress and the presidency alike. But if Americans choose this easy route next year, they will find that it leads to a dead end. A Democratic triumph next year will simply turn out to be a repetition of recent political history. How long will Americans dance to the tune of this dishonest and corrupt two-party scheme? Choosing the easy route will not get us anywhere. Instead, we should make known loudly and clearly our intense desire for candidates whose integrity is unsullied by a web of political connections and whose records are unsullied by corruption (such as “Average Joe” Schriner, Mick Huckabee or Sam Brownback for president), and then write the name of one of those candidates on the ballot in state primary elections and again in the November 2008 election. Otherwise, Americans eight years from now will again be whining about the dishonesty, corruption and ineffectiveness of Washington, D.C.

The “frightful dictatorship” and corrupt farce that is our two-party system should be dismantled. Parties give us temptations to attack opponents, become demagogues, and garner followers, distracting us from seeking the true good of the country. If we nevertheless wish to belong to a particular group of Americans with a clear identity, let us unite with all Americans of good will. Instead of saying, “I am a Republican” or “I am a Democrat”, let us rediscover the heritage bequeathed to us by our wise and farsighted national founders and try to grasp what it really means to say, “I am an American.” The United States was established by our founders as a nation that is too great to be defined by just two colors. Interestingly, the American flag contains some red and some blue, but the color most evenly spread throughout the flag is white. White can be thought of as a mixture of all political shades, and thus as a symbol of unity. Unity on the basis of the fundamental, universal moral truths enshrined in the hearts of all Americans and willingness to compromise on negotiable issues is what America needs now more than ever.

Copyright © 2007 by Justin D. Soutar. All rights reserved.

Quote of the Day

"Those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord… We know that, by His divine law, nations like individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world… We have been recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown; but we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own."

--Abraham Lincoln, 1863

Quote of the Day

"But how beautiful is this mission to give light to the world! It is a mission that we have. It is beautiful! It is also very beautiful to keep the light that we have received from Jesus, protect it, keep it. The Christian must be a shining person, who brings light, who always gives light! A light that is not his, but a gift from God, it is Jesus’ gift. And we carry this light. If the Christian extinguishes this light, his life has no meaning. He is a Christian in name only, he does not bring light with him, his light is without meaning. But I would like to ask you now, how do you want to live? Do you want to live like a light [“lampada”] that is on or one that is off? On or off? How do you want to live? [The people in St. Peter’s Square respond, “On!”]. A light that is on! It is God himself who gives us this light and we give it to others. A light that is on! This is the Christian vocation."

--Pope Francis

Reflection for the Presentation of the Lord

"When Paul applies the word hilasterion [expiation] to Jesus, designating him as the seal of the Ark of the Covenant and thus as the locus of the presence of the living God, the entire Old Testament theology of worship (and with it all the theologies of worship in the history of religions) is 'preserved and surpassed' and raised to a completely new level. Jesus himself is the presence of the living God. God and man, God and the world, touch one another in him. The meaning of the ritual of the Day of Atonement is accomplished in him. In his self-offering on the Cross, Jesus, as it were, brings all the sin of the world deep within the love of God and wipes it away. Accepting the Cross, entering into fellowship with Christ, means entering the realm of transformation and expiation."

--Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth--Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2011), pp. 39-40

Quote of the Day

“Meekness is necessary in order to dialogue, without shouting. It is also necessary to think of the other person as something more than me, and David thought of this: ‘He is the anointed one of the Lord, and is more important than me.’ Humility, meekness. In order to dialogue, it is necessary to do that which we ask for today in prayer, at the beginning of Mass: to do everything for everyone...

“Jesus has done it: he humbled himself until the end, he has shown us the way. And it is necessary that too much time doesn’t pass. When there is a problem, as soon as possible, in the moment in which it can be done, after the storm has passed, come together to dialogue, because time makes the wall grow, the weeds grow and impede the growth of the grain. And when the walls grow, reconciliation is very difficult. It is very difficult!...

“Even in our hearts, it is possible to become like Berlin and build up a wall against others. I am afraid of these walls, the walls that grow everyday and encourage resentments and hate.”

--Pope Francis

Quote of the Day

"Do everything calmly and peacefully. Do as much as you can as well as you can. Strive to see God in all things without exception, and consent to His will joyously. Do everything for God, uniting yourself to him in word and deed. Walk very simply with the Cross of the Lord and be at peace with yourself."

--Saint Francis de Sales

Forty-Plus Years of Legal Mass Murder

Today we Americans observe with great sorrow the forty-first anniversary of the unconstitutional, unjust, and tragic Roe v. Wade decision.

On January 22, 1973, seven men on the U.S. Supreme Court arbitrarily decided that a woman has a right to kill her innocent unborn child for any reason whatsoever. In producing this ruling, the Court misinterpreted the Fifth Amendment to our Constitution, which 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 persons accused of crimes. When our nation’s Founders authored this text, they meant that no one could be executed or deprived of his freedom or land without first being properly tried and convicted of a crime. But the irresponsible activist Court led by Chief Justice Warren Burger chose to ignore the intent of the Constitution’s authors and, through some incomprehensible twist of logic, arbitrarily reinterpreted the Fifth Amendment due process clause to justify legalizing the murder of innocent unborn persons—something the Founders would never have approved of in their wildest dreams. Roe v. Wade represented nothing less than an attack on the integrity and meaning of the Constitution of the United States by the very institution that is supposed to protect it, the U.S. Supreme Court.

Not only was Roe v. Wade an unconstitutional decision, it was also an unjust decision. In the Declaration of Independence, we the people of the United States declared, “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.” The right to life is the most fundamental of all rights with which God the Creator has endowed all human beings. This right to life is an “unalienable” right, meaning that it cannot be taken away. Human life is sacred because it is a gift from God the Creator. To deprive an innocent human being of life is a violation of that person’s unalienable right to life. It is also a violation of the Fifth Commandment, “Thou shalt not kill.” Our nation’s devout Christian Founders took these principles of the natural law for granted. They could scarcely have imagined that, two hundred years later, the judicial branch of government would somehow justify allowing innocent human beings to be killed in their mothers’ wombs right here in the United States of America. They did warn, however, that the United States would not long endure without what George Washington referred to as the “indispensable supports” of religion and morality. If the people of a nation don’t believe that human rights—especially the right to life—come from God, then those rights will be perceived as coming from the state and the state will claim the authority to give or take away those rights as it sees fit. And if people don’t believe that it is wrong to deprive an innocent person of his or her right to life, then human life will not be respected.

Finally, Roe v. Wade was an immensely tragic decision. During the past forty-plus years, some 56.5 million innocent unborn human beings—an average of 1.38 million a year—have been murdered in their mothers’ wombs through legalized abortion. That is an alarming and staggering figure. That’s more than nine times the number of innocent Jews murdered in the Holocaust. It’s also more than the fifty million people killed in World War II, the deadliest conflict in modern human history. It is difficult to comprehend the full magnitude of this loss of life or to calculate the full impact of this massacre of the unborn on our nation over the past forty years. Excluding miscarriages, accidents, disease, and other causes of death outside the womb, our country is currently missing some 56 million inhabitants; in addition, many of those aborted in the 1970s and 80s would now be married and raising children of their own, so our country is really missing somewhere around 70 million people, and our nation’s population should be around 388 million instead of the 318 million it is now. Think of how much different—and better—things would be in our country if we had all these missing people contributing to our economy and using their God-given talents to serve our nation in a variety of professions and fields. We will never know how different the United States would be in 2014 if nearly all the innocent unborn had been born and were alive today. The absence of 70 million citizens is an incalculable loss to our nation.

Blessed John Paul II once said, “The condition for the survival of America is to respect every human person, especially the weakest and most defenseless ones, those as yet unborn.” The appalling legal mass murder of the unborn in our nation must be brought to an end. Roe v. Wade must be overturned so that the unalienable, God-given right to life of every innocent unborn human being in the United States is once again protected by our Constitution and guaranteed by our laws. We must not rest until we achieve that goal.

Quote of the Day

"All of us through Baptism have been elected by the Lord. We are all elected. He has chosen us one by one. He has given us a name and looks at us. There is a dialogue, because that is how the Lord loves. Even David later becomes king and made a mistake. He maybe made many, but the Bible tells us of two big mistakes, two mistakes that really fall heavy. What did David do? He humiliated himself. He returned to his smallness and said: ‘I am a sinner’. And he asked for forgiveness and did penance. David guarded his smallness, with repentance, with prayer, with weeping...

“Christian faithfulness, our faithfulness, is to simply guard our smallness, so that we can dialogue with the Lord... For this reason humility, meekness, and gentleness are so important in the life of the Christian, because it is a container of smallness which the Lord likes to see. And there will always be a dialogue between our smallness and the greatness of the Lord.”

--Pope Francis

Quote of the Day

“An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.”

--Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Quote of the Day

“It is in the Gospel that Christians find inspiration for their daily lives and their involvement in worldly affairs—-be it in the houses of Parliament or the stock exchange. Christians should not shun the world; they should engage with it. But their involvement in politics and economics should transcend every form of ideology.”

--Benedict XVI, “A Time for Christians to Engage with the World,” Financial Times, Dec. 20, 2012

Quote of the Day

"Peace is also threatened by every denial of human dignity, firstly the lack of access to adequate nutrition. We cannot be indifferent to those suffering from hunger, especially children, when we think of how much food is wasted every day in many parts of the world immersed in what I have often termed "the throwaway culture". Unfortunately, what is thrown away is not only food and dispensable objects, but often human beings themselves, who are discarded as "unnecessary". For example, it is frightful even to think there are children, victims of abortion, who will never see the light of day; children being used as soldiers, abused and killed in armed conflicts; and children being bought and sold in that terrible form of modern slavery which is human trafficking, which is a crime against humanity."

--Pope Francis

Reflection for the Baptism of the Lord

"Jesus loaded the burden of all mankind's guilt upon his shoulders; he bore it down into the depths of the Jordan. He inaugurated his public activity by stepping into the place of sinners. His inaugural gesture is an anticipation of the Cross. He is, as it were, the true Jonah who said to the crew of the ship, 'Take me and throw me into the sea' (Jon. 1:12). The whole significance of Jesus' Baptism, the fact that he bears 'all righteousness,' first comes to light on the Cross: The Baptism is an acceptance of death for the sins of humanity, and the voice that calls out 'This is my beloved Son' over the baptismal waters is an anticipatory reference to the Resurrection. This also explains why, in his own discourses, Jesus uses the word baptism to refer to his death (cf. Mk. 10:38; Lk. 12:50)."

--Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth--Part One: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration (New York: Doubleday, 2007), p. 18

Culture of Corruption

Four years ago, I celebrated his election to the U.S. House of Representatives. This morning, I signed a petition calling for his removal from office.

Four years ago, U.S. Representative John Boehner, a good Catholic family man from Ohio, was elected to replace Representative Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House. As a leader of the Tea Party Republican movement, he was elected on a platform that included protection of the innocent unborn, smaller government, lower taxes, spending cuts, reduction of the national debt, and the repeal of ObamaCare. For several years, Speaker Boehner fulfilled his campaign promises, leading the U.S. House opposition to President Barack Obama's immoral and irresponsible policies. Unfortunately, during the past few months, Boehner's leadership has proved disappointing. In October of 2013, he led the House in approving federal funding for ObamaCare, shamefully betraying his own professed values of respect for unborn life, marriage, religious liberty, moral conscience rights, the moral law, and the right of the American people to make their own healthcare decisions.

Speaker Boehner typifies the culture of corruption that has been affecting our federal government for a number of years now. New candidates for the House, Senate and presidency run promising to bring real change to Washington, but once they get to Washington and into their work, they simply assimilate into the corrupt establishment and end up representing the big abortion, agricultural, biotechnology, financial, insurance, junk food, pharmaceutical, and other interests that generally control how Washington operates instead of representing the true interests and common good of all Americans. New candidates with impeccable moral and religious credentials who are determined to deliver exactly what they promise are forced to contend with mass media smear campaigns and voter fraud, and those who do make it into the U.S. House or Senate find themselves a tiny minority, unable to accomplish most of their agenda for our nation. Such candidates cannot even win their party's nomination for the U.S. presidency these days because both the party establishment are so corrupt.

All of this is very frustrating for us, the American people. However, as good Catholics and good citizens, we cannot simply give up and surrender our nation to its enemies in high places. There are still things we can and should do to change our federal government. The first is to pray daily for our elected representatives and for our country. The second is to take action. Sign this petition calling for Representative Boehner's removal from office. Register to vote, if you aren't already registered, and don't miss the upcoming elections this November. Vote only for candidates who affirm traditional values and who are determined to challenge and defeat the Obama administration's unjust and unconstitutional laws, including ObamaCare. Real change is possible, but we must demand it and work hard to achieve it. And above all, we must trust in God, who guides the affairs of nations.

Quote of the Day

"The new star that appeared to the Magi was the sign of the birth of Christ. If they had not seen the star, those men would not have set out. Light precedes us, truth precedes us, beauty precedes us. God precedes us. The prophet Isaiah said that God is like the flower of the almond tree. Why? Because the almond tree is the first to flower in that land. And God always precedes, He always seeks us first. He takes the first step. God precedes us always. His grace precedes us and this grace appeared in Jesus. He is the epiphany. He, Jesus Christ, is the manifestation of the love of God. He is with us."

--Pope Francis

Thought & Prayer for the Day

"In the mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God there is also an aspect connected to human freedom, to the freedom of each one of us. In fact, the Word of God pitched his tent among us, sinners and needful of mercy. And we must all make haste to receive the grace that he offers us. But, St. John’s Gospel continues, “his own did not welcome him” (1:11). We too often reject him, we prefer to remain closed up in our errors and the anxiety of our sins. But Jesus does not desist and does not cease to offer himself and his grace that save us! Jesus is patient, Jesus knows how to wait, he always waits for us. This is a message of hope, a message of salvation, ancient and ever new. And we are called to bear witness with joy to this message of the Gospel of life, the Gospel of light, of hope and love, because this is Jesus’ message: life, light, hope, love.

"May Mary, the Mother of God and our tender Mother, sustain us always so that we remain faithful to the Christian vocation and make the justice and peace that we desire at beginning of this new year a reality."

--Pope Francis

Reflection for the Epiphany of the Lord

"The new King, to whom they [the Magi] now paid homage, was quite unlike what they were expecting. In this way they had to learn that God is not as we usually imagine him to be. This was where their inner journey began. It started at the very moment when they knelt down before this child and recognized him as the promised King. But they still had to assimilate these joyful gestures internally.

"They had to change their ideas about power, about God and about man, and in so doing, they also had to change themselves. Now they were able to see that God's power is not like that of the powerful of this world. God's ways are not as we imagine them or as we might wish them to be.

"God does not enter into competition with earthly powers in this world. He does not marshal his divisions alongside other divisions. God did not send 12 legions of angels to assist Jesus in the Garden of Olives (cf. Mt 26: 53). He contrasts the noisy and ostentatious power of this world with the defenseless power of love, which succumbs to death on the Cross and dies ever anew throughout history; yet it is this same love which constitutes the new divine intervention that opposes injustice and ushers in the Kingdom of God.

"God is different - this is what they now come to realize. And it means that they themselves must now become different, they must learn God's ways.

"They had come to place themselves at the service of this King, to model their own kingship on his. That was the meaning of their act of homage, their adoration. Included in this were their gifts - gold, frankincense and myrrh - gifts offered to a King held to be divine. Adoration has a content and it involves giving. Through this act of adoration, these men from the East wished to recognize the child as their King and to place their own power and potential at his disposal, and in this they were certainly on the right path.

"By serving and following him, they wanted, together with him, to serve the cause of good and the cause of justice in the world. In this they were right.

"Now, though, they have to learn that this cannot be achieved simply through issuing commands from a throne on high. Now they have to learn to give themselves - no lesser gift would be sufficient for this King. Now they have to learn that their lives must be conformed to this divine way of exercising power, to God's own way of being.

"They must become men of truth, of justice, of goodness, of forgiveness, of mercy. They will no longer ask: how can this serve me? Instead, they will have to ask: How can I serve God's presence in the world? They must learn to lose their life and in this way to find it. Having left Jerusalem behind, they must not deviate from the path marked out by the true King, as they follow Jesus."

--Benedict XVI, Address to Young People at Marienfeld, Cologne, Germany, August 20, 2005

Quote of the Day

“Christmas is a state of mind. It is found throughout the year whenever faith overcomes doubt, hope conquers despair, and love triumphs over hate...Let us resolve to honor this spirit of Christmas and strive to keep it throughout the year.”

--U. S. President Ronald Reagan, 1981

Happy New Year...and Happy Feast Day!

A Happy New Year to everyone, and a Happy Feast Day of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Holy Mother of God (Theotokos).

For us Catholics, today is also the World Day of Peace, when we are called to reflect on how God's peace can reign more fully in our hearts, in our families, in our country and in the world. The relatively young tradition of this annual observance and of a papal message for the occasion dates back to 1967, when the World Day of Peace was instituted by Pope Paul VI. Pope Francis has written a beautiful Message for this World Day of Peace, the full text of which is well worth reading. The theme of Francis' Message for 2014 is "Fraternity, the Foundation and Pathway to Peace." Here are a few excerpts:

"In this, my first Message for the World Day of Peace, I wish to offer to everyone, individuals and peoples, my best wishes for a life filled with joy and hope. In the heart of every man and woman is the desire for a full life, including that irrepressible longing for fraternity which draws us to fellowship with others and enables us to see them not as enemies or rivals, but as brothers and sisters to be accepted and embraced....

"Globalization, as Benedict XVI pointed out, makes us neighbours, but does not make us brothers. [Cf. Encyclical Letter Caritas in Veritate (29 June 2009), 19: AAS 101 (2009), 654-655.] The many situations of inequality, poverty and injustice, are signs not only of a profound lack of fraternity, but also of the absence of a culture of solidarity. New ideologies, characterized by rampant individualism, egocentrism and materialistic consumerism, weaken social bonds, fuelling that “throw away” mentality which leads to contempt for, and the abandonment of, the weakest and those considered “useless”. In this way human coexistence increasingly tends to resemble a mere do ut des which is both pragmatic and selfish....

"The story of Cain and Abel teaches that we have an inherent calling to fraternity, but also the tragic capacity to betray that calling. This is witnessed by our daily acts of selfishness, which are at the root of so many wars and so much injustice: many men and women die at the hands of their brothers and sisters who are incapable of seeing themselves as such, that is, as beings made for reciprocity, for communion and self-giving....

"The basis of fraternity is found in God’s fatherhood. We are not speaking of a generic fatherhood, indistinct and historically ineffectual, but rather of the specific and extraordinarily concrete personal love of God for each man and woman (cf. Mt 6:25-30). It is a fatherhood, then, which effectively generates fraternity, because the love of God, once welcomed, becomes the most formidable means of transforming our lives and relationships with others, opening us to solidarity and to genuine sharing...

"Fraternity generates social peace because it creates a balance between freedom and justice, between personal responsibility and solidarity, between the good of individuals and the common good. And so a political community must act in a transparent and responsible way to favour all this. Citizens must feel themselves represented by the public authorities in respect for their freedom. Yet frequently a wedge is driven between citizens and institutions by partisan interests which disfigure that relationship, fostering the creation of an enduring climate of conflict.

"An authentic spirit of fraternity overcomes the individual selfishness which conflicts with people’s ability to live in freedom and in harmony among themselves....

"May Mary, the Mother of Jesus, help us to understand and live every day the fraternity that springs up from the heart of her Son, so as to bring peace to each person on this our beloved earth."

And may Pope Francis' noble words inspire and motivate all of us Catholics, Christians, and all people of good will to renew our commitment to work together more earnestly in this new year for true and lasting peace in the world.

God Is With Us

by Justin Soutar

December 31, 2013

The end of 2013 is now upon us. Two thousand nine years have elapsed since our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was born of the Virgin Mary in a stable cave in Bethlehem, in the land of Israel. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whosoever believes in him may not perish, but may have life everlasting” (John 3:16). The entrance of the eternal and all-powerful Son of God into our sinful world in the form of a tiny little baby was such a profoundly transformative historical event that it split in two the way we reckon time: All the years leading up to Christ’s birth are denominated B. C. (Before Christ), while the years following His birth are designated A. D. (Anno Domini, the Year of our Lord). From the time of the original sin of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, the people of Israel waited four thousand years for the coming of the Messiah who would save them from their sins and reconcile them with God. All the righteous people who lived and died in those millennia preceding Christ couldn’t go to Heaven but had to wait in Sheol, “the abode of the dead,” until Christ by His Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension liberated the captives and opened the gates of Heaven. Christ’s coming to earth some two thousand years ago changed the world forever, bringing light to those in darkness and hope to those in despair. Through His Church, Christ offers all men and women forgiveness of their sins and restoration of the greatest gift any human being could ever possess: the gift of sanctifying grace, the gift Adam and Eve lost by sin, which gives us a share in God’s own Trinitarian life, makes us His sons and daughters, and entitles us to share in the unimaginable happiness of Heaven for all eternity after our death. Wow! That is something to rejoice about. That is the Good News of the Gospel that we as Christians are called to share with everyone on this earth. God indeed loves us more than we can ever imagine in our little finite human minds. We believe in His love, and we hope in His love. Faith, hope and love go together. But “the greatest of these is love.”

Now, the fact that we acknowledge and believe all this to be true does not allow us to ignore or gloss over the realities of sin, suffering, evil, and death that continue to afflict our world. Christ’s descent to earth two thousand years ago did not magically dispel these tragic realities that have marked and continue to mark human history. Rather, his Incarnation was just the beginning of God’s definitive triumph over sin and death that will be completed at the end of the world, when Christ will return in glory to judge all mankind and when God will create new heavens and a new earth. The continuing and even worsening presence of sin and evil, suffering and death in our world is a mysterious part of God’s master plan for human history. Not that God originally willed or made any of these negative realities, but in the unfathomable designs of his Providence, God is allowing them for His own reasons that we human beings, constrained by our finite minds and short lifetimes, cannot fully understand or appreciate. Our faith tells us that God holds all of His creation in His hands at every moment and that He governs it through His Providence, so we have to trust that He knows what He is about. Our faith also tells us that God brings good out of evil, and that this is the reason why He allows evil in the first place. The worst evil He ever permitted—the murder of His own Son on a cross—led to the greatest good possible, our salvation from sin and reconciliation with God. If God allowed his own perfectly holy and innocent Son to suffer such a cruel fate, can we sinners who follow Him reasonably expect to have a carefree and easy life? No. On the contrary, Jesus said that if anyone wishes to come after Him, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Him. Being a Christian is not easy; it’s not a joyride. Not as long as we live on this earth. But as Saint Paul reminds us, the sufferings of this present life are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come. Even a life full of pain and suffering for more than 100 years would be a small price to pay for the eternal happiness of Heaven. Christ the Son of God did not come to earth to free us from suffering; rather, he came to share in our humanity, in our human experiences and sufferings and miseries, to show us how to suffer well, and to illuminate our sufferings with the comfort of His loving presence in our lives. Through his heroic self-sacrifice for our sins out of love for us, Christ has given us the opportunity to freely and spiritually unite our own sufferings with his, thus giving them a redemptive value and Christian meaning for our own greater good and that of our fellow brothers and sisters. In some mysterious way, it is precisely when God seems to be at His weakest by permitting terrible evils that His almighty power is most gloriously manifest. So while sin and all its accompanying dark realities remain present in our world, God is with us. He has entered into our history and profoundly and irrevocably altered its course. Troubled and threatened as it is, our world today is a brighter and happier place than it would otherwise have been because the quiet and peaceful light of the Son of God made Man has entered it and continued to illuminate it ever since that first Christmas more than twenty centuries ago.

Through the joys and surprises, successes and failures, sorrows and vicissitudes of this past year, God’s mysterious wisdom and Providence were remarkably evident. The historic resignation of Pope Benedict XVI and the unforeseen election of Pope Francis were two of the most surprising and joyful events of the year, respectively. I was sad to see Pope Benedict go and unsure at first about Pope Francis, but now I see God’s hand in these events. God inspired Pope Benedict, who served His Church humbly and well, to resign a very demanding position because of his ailing health, in order to allow for the election of a new and different kind of Pope from Latin America who would reacquaint a Church in need of reform and a world in need of God with the joy and simplicity of the Gospel message. If Benedict had not resigned, Pope Francis could not have brought together three million young people for World Youth Day in Rio de Janiero. Nor could he have inspired Pope Francis to summon the whole Church and the world to pray and fast for peace, thus averting what could have been a disastrous U.S. war with Syria. Nor could God have used him to wake up the Church and the world to that terrible evil that has come to plague our modern globalized society, namely, the globalization of indifference, our callousness and lack of concern for our suffering brothers and sisters all around the world, symbolized by the repeated tragedy of impoverished African migrants shipwrecked and drowned at Lampedusa. Although it did not anticipate his election, the world has come to love Pope Francis. God is obviously using him in a big way, as we never could have expected back in February when Pope Benedict made his stunning announcement. And, to top it all off, Benedict XVI continues to serve the Church, including his successor Pope Francis, through his prayers, writings, and friendship. The ways of God are marvelous indeed!

Of course, we cannot overlook the fact that many bad things happened this year also. Several more states and additional foreign countries legalized homosexual “marriage,” which is against nature and nature’s God. Abortion, hunger, violence, and war claimed millions of innocent lives. Violence destroyed lives and valuable property in Egypt, Syria, Sudan and elsewhere, while millions of people in the Middle East and Africa are living in refugee camps, largely forgotten by most of us. The tiny Christian community in the Holy Land dwindled further as Christians continued their steady exodus, while continued injustice and terrorist violence driven by religious fundamentalism (both Jewish and Muslim) kept the Israeli-Palestinian conflict boiling hotter than ever. Droughts, floods, storms, mudslides and famines affected many parts of the globe. Poverty, disease, and corruption continued to affect most nations of Africa, while the global gap between rich and poor is wider than ever before.

And here in the United States, despite strong leadership from our Catholic bishops and the prayers and action of millions of Americans, our predominantly immoral and corrupt federal government has stubbornly refused to significantly amend or withdraw its immoral, unjust and unconstitutional anti-life mandate, which is set to begin being enforced tomorrow. I have a feeling that, once our government attempts to enforce this illegitimate law, our country may never be the same. But regardless of the terrible consequences such enforcement will bring, we must not give up the fight for the natural law, for our religious liberties, or for our moral conscience rights. We must continue fighting until this unconscionable law is repealed and our God-given human rights are once again officially recognized and respected in law.

As followers of Christ, we are a people of hope. However, Christian hope is not simply blind optimism in the face of difficult situations. Nor is Christian hope dependent upon changing circumstances and temporal realities. Rather, our hope is in God. God is with us. He, the same God who became man out of love for us, who accompanies us in our earthly lives, is the all-powerful and wise God who directs the course of history toward its ultimate end, which is His glory. God’s Kingdom will ultimately be triumphant over the powers of darkness, and we who serve Him faithfully on earth will reign with Him forever in Heaven.

In conclusion, the following lines from an old song ring even truer today than when they were first penned:

I heard the bells on Christmas Day Their old familiar carols play, And mild and sweet The words repeat Of peace on earth, good will to men.

Then in despair I bowed my head, “There is no peace on earth,” I said; For hate is strong, And mocks the song Of peace on earth, good will to men.

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: “God is not dead, nor doth He sleep. The wrong will fail, The right prevail, With peace on earth, good will to men.”

Wishing you a blessed New Year.



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

Quote of the Day

"A mass of legend and literature, which increases and will never end, has repeated and rung the changes on that single paradox; that the hands that had made the sun and stars were too small to reach the huge heads of the cattle. Upon this paradox, we might almost say upon this jest, all the literature of our faith is founded."

--G. K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man, 1925 (Ignatius Press, 2008, p. 169)

Quote of the Day

"The message of Christ and the Church puts credible knowledge about God within our reach. God wanted to enter into this world. God didn't want us to have only a distant inkling of him through physics and mathematics. He wanted to show himself to us. And so he was able to do what the Gospels recount that he did, just as he was also able to create a new dimension of existence in the Resurrection. He was able to go beyond what Teilhard de Chardin called the biosphere and the noosphere and to institute precisely a new sphere, in which man and the world attain union with God."

--Benedict XVI, Light of the World: The Pope, the Church, and the Signs of the Times (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2010), p. 168

Quote of the Day

“Even today Jesus continues to dispel the darkness of error and sin, to bring humanity the joy of the blazing light of God, of which the Christmas tree is a sign and reminder. Let us be wrapped by the light of His truth, because ‘the joy of the Gospel fills the hearts and the lives of all who encounter Jesus’”.

--Pope Francis

Quote of the Day

"The family is the wellspring of all fraternity, and as such it is the foundation and the first pathway to peace, since, by its vocation, it is meant to spread its love to the world around it."

--Pope Francis

Quote of the Day

“We are not so used to thinking of Jesus smiling, joyful. Jesus was full of joy - full of joy. In that intimacy with his Father: ‘He rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and praised the Father.’ It is the inner mystery of Jesus, that relationship with the Father in the Spirit. It is His inner joy, his interior joy that he gives to us...

“We cannot think of a Church without joy and the joy of the Church is this: announcing the name of Jesus. To say: ‘He is the Lord. My spouse is the Lord. It is God. He saves us, He walks with us.’ And that is the joy of the Church, who in this joy of a wife becomes a mother...

"May the Lord give us all this joy, this joy of Jesus, praising the Father in the Spirit. This joy of our mother Church in evangelizing, in announcing Her Spouse.”

--Pope Francis

Quote of the Day

"Advent is the spiritual season of hope par excellence, and in this season the whole Church is called to be hope, for itself and for the world."

--Benedict XVI