Reflection for the Octave of Easter

"At times, we may simply feel weary about our daily routine, tired of taking risks in a cold, hard world where only the clever and the strong seem to get ahead. At other times, we may feel helpless and discouraged before the power of evil, the conflicts that tear relationships apart, the attitudes of calculation and indifference that seem to prevail in society, the cancer of corruption — there is so much — the spread of injustice, the icy winds of war. Then too, we may have come face to face with death, because it robbed us of the presence of our loved ones or because we brushed up against it in illness or a serious setback. Then it is easy to yield to disillusionment, once the wellspring of hope has dried up. ....

"This, then, is what the Pasch of the Lord accomplishes: it motivates us to move forward, to leave behind our sense of defeat, to roll away the stone of the tombs in which we often imprison our hope, and to look with confidence to the future, for Christ is risen and has changed the direction of history. Yet, to do this, the Pasch of the Lord takes us back to the grace of our own past; it brings us back to Galilee, where our love story with Jesus began, where that first call was. In other words, it asks us to relive that moment, that situation, that experience in which we met the Lord, experienced His love, and received a radiantly new way of seeing ourselves, the world around us, and the mystery of life itself.

"Brothers and sisters, to rise again, to start anew, to take up the journey, we always need to return to Galilee, that is, to go back, not to an abstract or ideal Jesus, but to the living, concrete, and palpable memory of our first encounter with Him. Yes, brothers and sisters, to go forward we need to go back, to remember; to have hope, we need to revive our memory. This is what we are asked to do: to remember and go forward! If you recover that first love, the wonder and joy of your encounter with God, you will keep advancing. So remember, and keep moving forward."

--Pope Francis, Homily, April 8, 2023

Reflection for the Paschal Triduum

"Jesus goes forth into the night. Night signifies lack of communication, a situation where people do not see one another. It is a symbol of incomprehension, of the obscuring of truth. It is the place where evil, which has to hide before the light, can grow. Jesus himself is light and truth, communication, purity and goodness. He enters into the night. Night is ultimately a symbol of death, the definitive loss of fellowship and life. Jesus enters into the night in order to overcome it and to inaugurate the new Day of God in the history of humanity....

"We think we are free and truly ourselves only if we follow our own will. God appears as the opposite of our freedom. We need to be free of him – so we think – and only then will we be free. This is the fundamental rebellion present throughout history and the fundamental lie which perverts life. When human beings set themselves against God, they set themselves against the truth of their own being and consequently do not become free, but alienated from themselves. We are free only if we stand in the truth of our being, if we are united to God. Then we become truly “like God” – not by resisting God, eliminating him, or denying him. In his anguished prayer on the Mount of Olives, Jesus resolved the false opposition between obedience and freedom, and opened the path to freedom. Let us ask the Lord to draw us into this “yes” to God’s will, and in this way to make us truly free."

--Pope Benedict XVI, Homily, April 5, 2012

Ten Years with Francis, the Misunderstood Pope

by Justin Soutar
March 30, 2023

Following the surprise resignation of Pope Benedict XVI in February of 2013 for age and health reasons, few observers were anticipating the quick election of 76-year-old Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Argentina, as his successor. As the first pontiff from Latin America, the first Jesuit, and the first to take the name of Saint Francis of Assisi, he was a newcomer, a teacher, and a reformer. Francis brought to the Petrine office a fresh perspective, a humble and engaging personality, a simple and clear way of preaching and teaching the Catholic faith, and a frugal lifestyle reflecting Gospel values. With his winning combination of personal warmth, simplicity of life, emphasis on divine mercy, and charitable outreach to the poor and marginalized, he immediately captured the hearts of hundreds of millions of Catholics and non-Catholics alike across the globe.

Building upon and continuing the work of his great predecessors Pope Saint Paul VI, Pope Saint John Paul II, and Pope Benedict XVI, Francis has consistently striven to shed the light of the perennial truths of Christ and His Church through the lens of the Second Vatican Council onto the complex situation of the twenty-first century world. Through his homilies, addresses, apostolic exhortations, encyclicals, canon law reforms, the Jubilee Year of Mercy, the Year of Saint Joseph, and the three Synods on the Family, the Amazon, and on Participation, Communion, and Mission, he has strengthened and equipped believers to face contemporary issues with the power of Gospel truth; made official Church business more transparent and accountable; and has summoned the whole Church to listen more carefully and respond more effectively to a great variety of pastoral challenges. Furthermore, he successfully navigated the Church through the unexpected and difficult storm of the COVID-19 pandemic and the initial worldwide lockdown in response to it.

Unfortunately, less than two years after his election, the initial widespread enthusiasm with which Pope Francis was received had dissolved into heated controversy, unfair criticism, inane conspiracy theories, and frank disillusionment regarding his character and intentions among large numbers of people both within and outside of the Church, for opposing reasons. His “progressive” style and emphasis, including his elevation to the Curia of some bishops with incomplete fidelity to Church teaching and his call in Amoris Laetitia for a new pastoral approach to some irregular marital situations, has led many faithful and traditionalist Catholics to view him through a “hermeneutic of rupture” as a wild-eyed radical who is bent on distorting Church doctrine and discipline beyond recognition and who was elected through the machinations of a secret group of cardinals for this very purpose. Meanwhile, many heretics and radical secularists who had expected Francis to remake the Church in their own image were profoundly disappointed to find him upholding traditional Church teachings on abortion, marriage, and the devil and publicly rebuking the wayward German synod.

It’s a shame that influential and otherwise faithful Catholic media outlets such as the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) and Inside the Vatican magazine have turned themselves into platforms for slanderous attacks on, and unjust criticisms of, Pope Francis by Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano and other chronically negative commentators. By frequently zeroing in on a handful of Francis’ vague or unclear words and actions, magnifying their controversial aspects, and ignoring the larger context while conspicuously failing to recognize his personal holiness and the many remarkable accomplishments of his papacy, they are presenting to hundreds of millions of people a heavily biased, distorted, and inaccurate picture of Francis and his reign, thus harming the Church by fueling confusion and division within her and by alienating large numbers of the faithful from their own shepherd. This is not only irresponsible journalism, it is unjust and uncharitable and a tragic disservice to the truth. No wonder that the Holy Father has publicly referred to such incessant criticism as “the work of the devil”!

Many faithful Catholics now erroneously view Benedict XVI as a good pope loyal to tradition and Francis as a bad pope disloyal to it, conveniently brushing aside the facts that Benedict himself as Pope Emeritus explicitly rejected this narrative on multiple occasions as entirely baseless, remained a close friend and confidant of Francis, and frequently renewed his pledge of fidelity and obedience to the Jesuit pontiff. But even apart from Benedict’s unwavering support for his successor--not to mention the sadly neglected doctrine of papal infallibility--when one looks objectively at the totality of Francis’ public words and actions during his ten years as the Vicar of Christ to date, it becomes abundantly evident that the “hermeneutic of rupture” has no logical foundation whatsoever.

Thankfully, the majority of Catholics worldwide still correctly view Francis as the good, simple, holy, hardworking, Christ-like pope that he has been and appreciate the many blessings and graces God has bestowed on the Church through his generally wise and capable leadership. While there is certainly room for respectful criticism regarding some aspects and decisions of his administration, for the most part Francis has served as an exemplary Successor of Saint Peter. History will probably judge his pontificate favorably, and he will likely be fondly remembered long after his harshest critics have vanished into obscurity. Christ too was misunderstood and criticized by some of the religious leaders of his day for reaching out to those on the margins of society. Yet the Church he founded on Peter and the apostles has endured through two thousand years and has survived many grave problems because he and the Holy Spirit have remained with her and have protected her from teaching error. The self-assured critics of Francis on both sides seem unaware that the Church and the papacy are divine institutions.

Copyright © 2023 Justin D. Soutar. All rights reserved.

Reflection for the Fourth Sunday of Lent

"What does it mean to have the true light, to walk in the light? First of all it means abandoning false lights: the cold, vain light of prejudice against others, because prejudice distorts reality and ladens us with aversion to those whom we judge without mercy and condemn without appeal. This is our daily bread! When you gossip about others, you do not walk in the light, you walk in shadows. Another false light, because it is seductive and ambiguous, is that of self-interest: if we value men and things on the basis of usefulness to us, of pleasure, of prestige, we are not truthful in our relationships and situations. If we go down this path of seeking self-interest, we are walking in shadows.

"May the Blessed Virgin, who was the first to welcome Jesus, the Light of the World, obtain for us this grace of welcoming anew the light of faith this Lent, rediscovering the inestimable gift of Baptism, which all of us have received. And may this new illumination transform us in attitude and action, so that we too, beginning with our poverty, our narrow-mindedness, may be bearers of a ray of the light of Christ."

--Pope Francis, Angelus Address, March 26, 2017

Quote of the Day

"During this liturgical season, the Lord takes us with Him to a place apart. While our ordinary commitments compel us to remain in our usual places and our often repetitive and sometimes boring routines, during Lent we are invited to ascend “a high mountain” in the company of Jesus and to live a particular experience of spiritual discipline —ascesis— as God’s holy people. Lenten penance is a commitment, sustained by grace, to overcoming our lack of faith and our resistance to following Jesus on the way of the Cross."

--Pope Francis, Message for Lent 2023

Quote of the Day

"Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake; since history and experience prove, that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government. But that jealousy, to be useful, must be impartial; else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defense against it."

--U.S. President George Washington (1732--1799), Farewell Address, 1796

Quote of the Day

"History is not history unless it's the truth."

--Abraham Lincoln

Quote of the Day

"The Congo is like a diamond, for her nature, her resources, and especially for her people; but this diamond has become a source of contention, of violence, and paradoxically of the impoverishment of the people. It is a dynamic that is also found in other African regions, and which applies in general to the Continent... In the face of all this I said two words. The first is negative: 'Enough!' Stop exploiting Africa!... The second is positive: together, together with dignity, all together, and with mutual respect, together in the name of Christ, our hope, to go forward. Do not exploit, and go forward together."

--Pope Francis, General Audience, February 8, 2023

Quote of the Day

"Men are capable of reciprocal comprehension because, far from being wholly separate islands of being, they communicate in the same truth. The greater their inner contact with the one reality which unites them, namely, the truth, the greater their capacity to meet on common ground. Dialogue without this interior obedient listening to the truth would be nothing more than a discussion among the deaf."

--Joseph Ratzinger, Benedict XVI (1927--2022)

Ice Storm

Eighteen years ago in January 2005, when I was almost nineteen years of age and living in west central Ohio with my parents and sister, a rare severe ice storm coated tree branches and other outdoor surfaces with one inch of ice accumulation, resulting in catastrophic damage and leaving us without electrical power or heat for 48 hours. The bizarre combination of spectacular beauty and terrible destruction inspired me to write the poem below, which was finally completed more than a year afterward and which offers an accurate description of the event. In subsequent months and years, I submitted it to various print and online publications, both Catholic and secular, but it has never been accepted for publication, perhaps due to its length (96 lines), or its changes of meter and lack of consistent rhyme. The style was greatly influenced by the epic classical poetry I studied in high school. Mild ice storms are a frequent occurrence this time of year in the mountains of western Virginia, where I have now lived for fourteen-plus years, and their beauty can be enjoyed without fear of danger except for occasional slippery road conditions. Please let me know what you think of this poem.

Ice Storm
by Justin Soutar
June 27, 2006

All through the dreary winter afternoon
A soft rain hammers steadily down.
A welcome respite from the piles of snow
Covering the ground some days ago.
Yet, we know this pleasant interlude
Will soon turn to snowy solitude;
And the clear drops of midwinter rain
Will yield to glistening powder again.
But suddenly—
A warning comes,
A dreadful chill
Pierces the wet air.
Raindrops clinging
To ground and branch.
Puddles turn hard.
--Everywhere—
The dismal clouds
Let fall their burden,
To weigh heavily
On the darkening land.
An eerie stillness
Now foreboding,
Nature trapped
Beneath layer upon layer.
As night falls,
The tree limbs’ icy burden
Grows too heavy
To sustain any longer.
The silence of darkness
Is suddenly broken.
C-c-crack! Just like that
A nearby branch snaps and
Crashes to earth,
Flinging a million chips of ice
Like shattered crystal,
Then stillness again.
Far in the distance,
Another bough cracks,
To be answered by another,
More and more crashes,
Each piercing the dark, frozen silence,
Over and over,
Finally a chorus
Of forest lords
Erupts in all directions,
Bowing to the ice.
Giant appendages
Torn from their stalks
Like candy canes
Bit by a child.
All through the night
The dirge wails on.
All through the following dingy day,
And through subsequent gloomy evening, slowly,
The chorus fades in a long decrescendo
Back into frozen stillness.
The next gray dawn arrives:
What a strange, yet beautiful sight!
Trees and earth all wrapped in ice,
All creation shrouded in white.
A million arches, like Romanesque churches:
Intact limbs, having withstood the onslaught,
Curving down with their heavy load
To touch the ground, at rest.
How strange that the clear liquid,
Sustaining all life,
Has morphed into bringer
Of damage and death.
So glorious to behold,
Yet a burden to nature;
A feast for the eyes,
Yet harm to the forest.
A million glistening white branches
envelop the white-coated ground,
Lying as conquered warriors
Beneath the towering staffs.
Fatal white magnificence
Blankets the earth,
A billion crystal jewels
Scattered everywhere.
Once more, the gray clouds turn somber
As night drops over the scene.
The ground remains frozen silent
And perpetually all motionless,
In ever-patient solidarity
With the damaged natives of the woods.
Up on high, a few starry diamonds
Begin to peek through the hugging clouds.
At the swift touch of a whistling breeze,
All of the radically injured trees
In their ice encasings creak and groan,
Limbs heave so painfully to and fro,
Anxiously awaiting liberation
From their long stiff-frozen condition.
Waiting till dawn for the earth to warm
And deliverance from tribulation.

Copyright © 2006 Justin D. Soutar. All rights reserved.

Quote of the Day

"Common sense is something that's all too lacking in government and politics these days. Too often, we're bogged down by the mental gymnastics of partisanship, the heavy weight of hands that do too much finger pointing, and a media culture that stokes controversy instead of collaboration. But in a Commonwealth that was founded for the people, by the people, we must change course. With courage and conviction, we can--and will--restore common sense to governing."

--Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, State of the Commonwealth Address, January 11, 2023

Reflection for the Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God

 

"To begin the year by recalling God’s goodness in the maternal face of Mary, in the maternal face of the Church, in the faces of our own mothers, protects us from the corrosive disease of being 'spiritual orphans'. It is the sense of being orphaned that the soul experiences when it feels motherless and lacking the tenderness of God, when the sense of belonging to a family, a people, a land, to our God, grows dim. This sense of being orphaned lodges in a narcissistic heart capable of looking only to itself and its own interests. It grows when what we forget that life is a gift we have received – and owe to others – a gift we are called to share in this common home."

--Pope Francis, Homily, January 1, 2017

Reflection for the Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord

"Augustus' instruction regarding the registration, for tax purposes, of all the citizens of the ecumene leads Joseph, together with Mary, his betrothed, to Bethlehem, the city of David, and thus it helps to bring to fulfillment the promise of the prophet Micah that the shepherd of Israel would be born in that city. The Emperor unwittingly contributes to the realization of the prophecy: the history of the Roman Empire is interwoven with the history of the salvation that God established with Israel. The history of God's election, hitherto confined to Israel, enters the wider world, it enters world history. God, who is the God of Israel and of all peoples, shows himself to be the true guiding force behind all history."

--Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth: Part Three: The Infancy Narratives (Image, 2012), pp. 64-65

Quote of the Day

"He [God] does not come in extraordinary events, but in everyday things; He manifests Himself in everyday things. He is there, in our daily work, in a chance encounter, in the face of someone in need, even when we face days that seem grey and monotonous, it is right there that we find the Lord, who calls to us, speaks to us and inspires our actions."

--Pope Francis, Angelus Address, November 27, 2022

Quote of the Day

"Vigilance means first of all openness to the good, to the truth, to God, in the midst of an often meaningless world and in the midst of the power of evil. It means that man tries with all his strength and with great sobriety to do what is right; it means that he lives, not according to his own wishes, but according to the signpost of faith."

--Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth--Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection (Ignatius Press, 2011), pp. 287-288

Election Watch 2022: A Decisive Turning Point?

by Justin Soutar

Every two years, the people of the United States have the opportunity to decide who will represent them in Congress by casting their ballots for various candidates for the Senate and the House of Representatives in the November general election. This year, as in previous years and as required by the U.S. Constitution, thirty-four Senate seats and all 435 House seats are up for grabs. Additionally, several states are holding gubernatorial and/or legislative elections this year, offering their residents the chance to determine who their next governor and/or state legislators will be. Finally, many states also have ballot propositions, allowing their inhabitants to direct state policy on a wide range of issues through a simple majority vote.

This year's midterm elections, so called because they fall in the middle of a presidential term, have a special significance because they are the first to be held following the momentous Supreme Court decision in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women's Health Organization this past June that overturned the Court's 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade. With abortion on demand no longer the law of the land nationwide, it's up to voters in each state to choose representatives who will either protect the inalienable right to life of innocent unborn children in that state in accordance with the Creator's natural law and the U.S. Constitution, or allow the abortion cartel led by Planned Parenthood to continue its gruesome butchery of hundreds of tiny babies a day for profit under such euphemisms as "women's health" and "women's reproductive rights". Pro-life and pro-abortion ballot initiatives in several states also await voter decision.

This author trembles at the thought that the fate of many hundreds of thousands, even millions, of innocent unborn children hangs in the balance. The sacred right to life of an entire class of human beings should not be protected in some states and denied in others based on the whims of a majority vote. Rather, the right to life of ALL human beings at every stage of existence should be legally protected throughout the nation. Until that day comes, it's the duty of every American of goodwill to vote pro-life. As Pope Saint John Paul II declared during his 1995 visit to the U.S: "When the unborn child... is declared to be beyond the protection of society, not only are America’s deepest traditions radically undermined and endangered, but a moral blight is brought upon society... The right to life is the first of all rights. It is the foundation of democratic liberties and the keystone of the edifice of civil society." (Emphasis in original text)

Many months of simmering dissatisfaction with illegitimate "President" Joe Biden and a Democratic-led Congress's foolish and destructive policies on a broad spectrum of issues including inflation, taxes, college debt, the runaway national debt, ObamaCare, education, energy, election integrity, gun violence, illegal immigration, military weakness, and foreign policy, combined with razor-thin Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, render a Republican takeover of both chambers very likely, even with the certainty of Democratic voter fraud in at least a few of the key close races. 

During the past ten years, Democratic henchmen have perfected the art of voter fraud to steal close elections from Republican candidates. In 2012, as revealed by Judicial Watch and the American Civil Rights Union, they amassed roughly four million fraudulent votes in 24 states to ensure Barack Obama's reelection as president and defeat Republican challenger and actual winner Mitt Romney. In 2020, as recounted in the documentary films 2000 Mules and Rigged, they took advantage of the chaos created by unprecedented changes in state election laws due to the coronavirus threat to secure as many as seven million illegal ballots for presidential candidate Joe Biden, guaranteeing his "victory" while depriving incumbent President Donald Trump of the second consecutive term that was rightfully his. Meanwhile, Democratic elites poured sufficient advertising dollars into traditionally Republican western states such as Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Nevada to pull them at least temporarily into their column.

The big question is to what extent Democratic voter fraud will influence the outcome of the November elections. This depends on many factors, one of which is the number of truly close races. The closer the race, the easier it is to alter the final vote tally. Many pre-election polls are inaccurately biased in favor of Democrats, which can help to achieve their desired outcome in two ways: they discourage some potential Republican voters, and they can be neatly matched with tainted results as evidence of their "legitimacy." Judicial Watch has done much good work in recent years to clean up dirty state voter rolls and ensure compliance with state and federal election laws. However, there is still much work to be done to restore and protect the integrity of our elections. For one thing, only an adult, legal U.S. citizens with a valid form of ID who is registered to vote by the required deadline in the district where he or she lives should be allowed to cast a ballot in any state.

These "midterm" elections take place in a nation that is deeply divided on basic values and principles; where mob riots in major cities have raged with impunity, unchecked by weakened and "de-funded" police forces; where those who publicly defend the right to life, traditional marriage, religious liberty, and America's greatness are smeared, harassed, censored, spied on, and sued as hate-filled bigots; where the minds of civilian and military students are being poisoned with indecent sex education, illogical gender ideology and anti-American critical race theory; where Catholic churches are vandalized and burned by pro-abortion domestic terrorists; where our rightful president-in-exile is "investigated" on fake charges, while the numerous real scandals and conflicts of interest involving the illegitimate "president" and his family are quietly ignored; and where corrupt special interest groups and Big Tech are bringing their full money, power, media, and propaganda resources to bear to swing the impending election results in their favor.

It's also a nation where, in spite of all this, tens of millions of good, ordinary, common-sense citizens are doing their best to earn a living, pay their bills, raise their families, educate their children, worship the Lord, serve their country, and help those in need. These Americans want and need lower inflation and lower taxes; less national debt; patient-centered health care; a truthful, decent, patriotic, and transparent public education system; domestically produced energy; secure borders; a strong national defense; informed and sensible foreign policy; free and fair elections; gun ownership; religious freedom; traditional marriage; and fewer abortions. If this silent majority turns out in force across the country to vote its values in this general election, as seems likely, Republicans will win in a dramatic landslide reminiscent of 2010 and 2014.

The great civil war for America's heart and soul has been raging for decades. The results of next week's elections will serve as a clear indicator of which side in this war--Judeo-Christian or radically secularist--has the upper hand at the moment. History will judge whether or not this particular battle marks a decisive turning point in the lengthy culture war. Continued prayer and fasting for the conversion of hearts and minds is needed to strengthen and reunite the nation on her traditional foundation of religion and morality. Only an America that trusts in God and respects inalienable human rights will successfully rise to the domestic and international challenges that she will face in the decades to come.

Copyright © 2022 Justin D. Soutar.

Quote of the Day

"Prayer is an indispensable aid for spiritual discernment, especially when it involves the affective dimension, enabling us to address God with simplicity and familiarity, as one would speak to a friend. It is knowing how to go beyond thoughts, to enter into intimacy with the Lord, with an affectionate spontaneity. The secret of the lives of the saints is familiarity and confidence with God, which grows in them and makes it ever easier to recognize what is pleasing to Him. True prayer is familiarity with and confidence in God."

--Pope Francis, General Audience, September 28, 2022

Quote of the Day

"When the unborn child – the 'stranger in the womb' – is declared to be beyond the protection of society, not only are America’s deepest traditions radically undermined and endangered, but a moral blight is brought upon society. I am also thinking of threats to the elderly, the severely handicapped and all those who do not seem to have any social usefulness. When innocent human beings are declared inconvenient or burdensome, and thus unworthy of legal and social protection, grievous damage is done to the moral foundations of the democratic community. The right to life is the first of all rights. It is the foundation of democratic liberties and the keystone of the edifice of civil society."

--Pope Saint John Paul II, Homily, October 5, 1995

Quote of the Day

"As is our custom, Vespers were said in the late afternoon, and a special thanksgiving was offered to God for giving us renewed hope through the many signs of land he has provided. I now believe that the light I saw earlier was a sign from God and that it was truly the first positive indication of land."

--Christopher Columbus, Diary, October 11, 1492

Quote of the Day

"The Church faces a particularly difficult task in her efforts to preach the word of God in all cultures in which the faithful are constantly challenged by consumerism and a pleasure-seeking mentality, where utility, productivity and hedonism are exalted while God and his law are forgotten. In these situation where ideas and behavior directly contradict the truth about God and about humanity itself, the Church's witness must be unpopular. She must take a clear stand on the word of God and proclaim the whole Gospel message with great confidence in the Holy Spirit."

--Pope Saint John Paul II, Homily, September 16, 1987

Quote of the Day

"The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators."

--The Constitution of the United States, Article I, Section 4

Quote of the Day

"I feel the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a direct war, a direct killing - direct murder by the mother herself. And we read in the Scripture, for God says very clearly: Even if a mother could forget her child - I will not forget you - I have carved you in the palm of my hand. We are carved in the palm of His hand, so close to Him. That unborn child has been carved in the hand of God."

--Saint Teresa of Calcutta (1910--1997), Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech, 1979

Quote of the Day

"One can know the whole Bible, one can know all the liturgical rubrics, one can know all the theology, but from knowing, loving is not automatic: loving has another way, intelligence is needed but also something more… True worship does not exist if it is not translated into service to one’s neighbor."

--Pope Francis, General Audience, April 27, 2016

The Natural Law Basis for Dobbs and Eliminating Legalized Abortion

by Justin Soutar

Like many other Americans of good will, during the past ten days I've been offering prayers of thanksgiving for the historic Supreme Court decision in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women's Health Organization that overturned the Court's terrible 1973 ruling in Roe vs. Wade. At the same time, I've been offering prayers of petition for the continued growth and spread of a culture of respect for life throughout our land.

The Dobbs decision is a credit to the fine legal minds and devout Catholicism of Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. Writing for the majority, Alito is absolutely correct that the reasoning underpinning Roe was egregiously flawed, and that there is no "right to abortion" in the U.S. Constitution. These five justices performed their sworn duty before God to the American people by strictly interpreting the Constitution according to its original text, meaning, and intent with regard to abortion law. That is exactly what all Supreme Court justices are supposed to do in every legal case, regardless of the issue. They are not supposed to "legislate from the bench," twisting the Constitution's original meaning to impose a contemporary ideological viewpoint on the entire nation, as they did in Roe and have unfortunately done many times since then on other important issues.

So what does Catholicism have to do with the majority's ruling in Dobbs? Two things. First, the Catholic Church teaches that there is no conflict between faith and reason, properly understood and applied, because both come from God and are sources of objective truth. When taken seriously in its totality, when believed and practiced as intended, Catholicism not only encourages faith in God (religion) and love of God and neighbor (morality), but also good critical thinking, coherent logical reasoning, and sound judgment. This is why the Catholic Church founded the modern university system in Europe in the High Middle Ages, and it is a major reason why these five justices earned great legal reputations and were appointed to the highest court in the United States.

Secondly, as Catholic League president Bill Donohue pointed out in his excellent book Why Catholicism Matters (2012), the foundation of inalienable human rights originating from the Creator on which our Declaration of Independence and Constitution were built was given to the world by the Catholic Church. While some of her members have notoriously violated her teachings in these areas, the Church has steadfastly maintained the sacredness of human life and the immorality of abortion since ancient times and has developed her doctrine on ordered liberty in the course of centuries. Our nation's Founders inherited the timeless natural law principle of inalienable rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness primarily from Saint Thomas Aquinas and Saint Robert Bellarmine, and they explicitly constructed a new nation on this principle written by the Creator into the fabric of human nature.

The idea of objective and universal moral truths of divine origin existing outside of ourselves and to which we must humbly submit is anathema to the morally relativistic and radically secularist thinking that has poisoned our society with a hedonistic "culture of death" in recent years. As a result of Roe vs. Wade, during the past fifty years, more than sixty million innocent unborn children (potential citizens) of the United States have been brutally denied the inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that were theoretically guaranteed to them by the Constitution for the sake of convenience. Simultaneously, the number of violent crimes against born human beings in this country has increased dramatically, and several states have legalized euthanasia. This should come as no surprise. Saint Teresa of Calcutta declared truthfully that abortion is the greatest destroyer of peace because if a woman can kill her unborn child, there is nothing to stop anyone else from killing whomever they wish to kill.

But the reality of inalienable human rights exists in all times and places, whether it is fully acknowledged and respected or not. The grave evil of African-American slavery was both legal and common throughout much of the United States for more than eighty years, and the alleged "right" to own slaves was even upheld for a time by the Supreme Court in Dred Scott vs. Sanford. Someday, the citizens of this country will rightly look back with utter horror at the Roe vs. Wade regime, viewing abortion the same way we view slavery today: How could this civilized nation founded on the principle of "liberty and justice for all" have tolerated such a grave injustice against so many millions of her own people for so many years?

I was disappointed but not surprised that Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the pro-Roe minority in the Dobbs case. Appointed to the High Court by President George W. Bush in 2005, Roberts was a faithful Catholic with apparently stellar conservative credentials. Just seven years later in 2012, however, Roberts was the deciding vote upholding the Affordable Care Act in United States vs. ObamaCare. He is an example of the unfortunate trend among many justices and judges in the United States in recent decades pointed out by Robert Bork in Slouching Towards Gomorrah (1996): when conservative lawyers are placed in U.S. courts, they often become less conservative.

The Supreme Court was right to return the issue of abortion to us, the people and our elected representatives. Unfortunately, while many states will now vote to restrict abortion or to outlaw it altogether, some will keep it legal with few if any restrictions. The monumental challenge now facing the pro-life movement in the United States is to sufficiently educate and mobilize the public and elected representatives to eradicate the evil of legalized abortion from all fifty states, either state by state or through Congressional legislation. President Ronald Reagan foresaw the latter method in his famous "Evil Empire" speech of 1983, declaring, "Human life legislation ending this tragedy [abortion on demand] will someday pass the Congress, and you and I must not rest until it does."." 

If the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution mean anything, the inalienable right to life of American unborn children cannot be protected in some states and left unprotected in others per the differing whims of majority vote, court ruling, state law, or executive order. As a matter of basic justice, it must be legally guaranteed throughout the nation. Given the controversial nature of the issue, this won't happen without a fight. As we fought a Civil War for the just cause of eliminating legalized slavery, we may well have to fight another for the just cause of eliminating legalized abortion. Our national transformation from a culture of death to a culture of life will not happen overnight, and prayer and fasting will play a critical role in its success. The closing lyrics of our national anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner," come to mind:

O thus be it ever, when free men shall stand 

Between their loved homes and the war's desolation.  

Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the Heav'n-rescued land 

Praise the Pow'r that hath made and preserved us a nation!

Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,

And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."

And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave

O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Copyright © 2022 Justin D. Soutar. All right reserved.

Reflection on the Solemnity of Corpus Christi

"People expected that in the messianic age the miracle of the manna would be repeated. The Messiah, so they believed, would prove his identity in that everyone would have enough to eat and bread would once more come down from heaven.

"Jesus' intention is to transfer this manna miracle onto a different plane. And to do it with the Eucharist. With the bread in which he gives himself, and in which accordingly the multiplication of loaves takes place henceforth throughout history, down to our own day. He can, in a certain sense, be shared with others to an infinite extent.

"In this sharing of bread, Jesus is making an advance with this renewed manna miracle, in that he repeats the old manna but also leads to a quite different, shall we say more humble, and at the same time more demanding, form. In its profundity this is a far greater miracle. And also in that bread does not just fall down from heaven; but sharing human togetherness, mutual giving--things that do not just fall down from heaven--are also made part of it."

--Benedict XVI, God and the World: A Conversation with Peter Seewald (Ignatius Press, 2002), pp. 246-247