COUNTDOWN TO C-DAY

I really had planned to move on to another issue this week. But with the clock ticking down to “Contraceptive Mandate Day”, the day the Catholic Church in America will either become an institutional outlaw or forced to serve Satan, it behooves us to pay attention.

At the stroke of midnight on August 1, all Catholic institutions not covered by a very narrow religious exemption will become subject to the Obama Administration's mandate to include contraceptive and sterilization coverage in their employee healthcare coverage.

The Catholic Church holds that all intentional contraceptive acts are "intrinsically evil". Thus to comply with the mandate will put the Church in America in the “service of Satan”, and to not comply will make the Church an outlaw.

While the USCCB has taken a national stance against the mandate, it does not dictate the policies of each diocese. Each diocese will still have to decide to comply or not comply, and that includes the Archdiocese of Agana.

As per the current reading of the mandate, if we do nothing, on August 1 the Archdiocese of Agana will automatically begin funding contraceptive and sterilization services through the health care premiums it or its subsidiary entities (schools, charitable organizations, etc.) pays to cover those employees who work for Archdiocesan employers not covered by the exemption (mostly schools).  

Let’s review the exemption. According to the mandate, a religious entity is exempt only if it (1) has the inculcation of religious values as its purpose; (2) primarily employs persons who share its religious tenets; (3) primarily serves persons who share its religious tenets; and (4) is a non-profit organization under the Internal Revenue Code.

According to the USCCB, academic institutions and most  of its charitable organizations will NOT qualify for the exemption since they exist to serve everyone regardless of creed. What can we do?

Under the initial terms of the mandate, Church-affiliated employers could have simply refused to pay the additional premium for the contraceptive coverage. It would be illegal to do so, but it was still something we could proactively do.

However, after the USCCB outcry over the mandate, Obama granted an “accommodation” which rendered Church employers even more powerless. Obama’s accommodation mandated that insurance companies bear the cost of the mandate instead of the employer.

The accommodation was an insult, for who could be stupid enough not to know that insurance companies would simply pass along the cost of the mandate to its subscribers.

At least under the initial terms of the mandate the Church could have continued to provide health coverage for its employees without contraceptive coverage even if there were legal consequences. However, Obama’s accommodation disemboweled the Church and subjected it to insurance companies and whatever they want to charge.

The Church now has only one option if it does not wish to be a material participant in something it has labeled “intrinsic evil”: cancel all health coverage for non-exempt employees. Thus, as of August 1, hundreds of Catholic school teachers are on track to be without health insurance. Thank you President Obama.

But there is something else. And I think it could work...at least for a few months. And, if Obama can be ousted in November, a few months is all we need.

Before I continue, I want to recognize that what I just said about ousting Obama is probably quite jarring for some. It may seem “too political” for this paper, even for an opinion piece, which this is.

However, as Catholics, we must understand that this is not about politics. This is about our being forced by this President to materially participate in the most serious form of evil - “intrinsic evil”, meaning “always and everywhere WRONG - NO EXCEPTIONS.

I have no authority to officially recommend this to the Archdiocese, but I believe we should claim the exemption for all our Catholic institutions by simply claiming that every one of them exists to inculcate Catholic religious values and “primarily” employs and serves persons who share those values. (The key word is “primarily”.)

The Feds would probably come after us. But it would take time, and we only need a few months - assuming Obama is ousted and the balance of power changes in the Senate..

To “come after us” the Feds would have to investigate who is “Catholic enough” and who is not. This would be the effective equivalent of an Inquisition. And though the likes of Sibelius and Pelosi would no doubt salivate at the prospect of playing Torquemada in reverse, such an action would be too politically dangerous for Obama.

The spectacle of it, the sheer smell of Nazism , (if the bishops play it that way) would shock awake the sleeping majority that is even now rousing from its 2008 hypnosis of “hope and change, hope and change, hope and change...”

WHY IS JERRY SANDUSKY IN JAIL?

This question ("Why is Jerry Sandusky in jail?") was posed recently by columnist Benjamin Wilker in Catholic World Report.

It’s easy to think we know the answer. But not too long ago, sodomy and abortion were viewed with similar disgust and were imprisonable offenses.

But now, not only have both been elevated to a constitutional right, sodomy has been institutionalized through the legalization of same-sex unions; and abortion - we are told - is a “healthy choice.”

Over the last fifty years our society has increasingly deemed laws against adultery, contraception, fornication, pornography, abortion, sodomy, etc., as the puritanical remnants of an uptight past and we have enthusiastically discarded them. Yet we get rabidly righteous about an older man soliciting sexual favors from young boys and demand his head. Why?

Pederasty (man-boy sex) has a significant historical and cultural pedigree and has enjoyed more social acceptance throughout history than any other form of sexual relationship other than traditional marriage.

The keeping of boys for sexual favors was a well-documented practice in ancient civilizations. The historian, Edward Gibbons, tells us pederasty was practiced from the earliest days of the Roman Republic, and of the first fifteen Emperors, only Claudius had a “correct taste” in love.

In ancient Greece, young boys were often given to older men for the purpose of providing sexual favors by their own fathers in return for promises to see to the boy’s education and social advancement.

Pederasty did not go away with the passing of those ancient civilizations. It has found many incarnations and degrees of social acceptance in a variety of cultures and times. C.S. Lewis even notes (in Surprised by Joy) its commonplace practice at the boarding school he attended as a boy in England.

Apparently, if Jerry Sandusky had been a Roman noble or a teacher at an English boarding school instead of a football coach in America, he not only would have not gone to jail, he would probably have been envied and imitated.

At the very worst, Sandusky might have been a citizen of modern Greece where pedophilia is deemed a disability, and its diagnosis qualifies one for a government pension.

But no such luck for Sandusky. To our nation’s righteous delight, he will rot in jail. But why?

To what standard do we appeal when we revile pedophilia and its practitioners?

Make no mistake, we are right to be repulsed and outraged. But the roots of our revulsion are to be found in the very thing we seem determined to uproot: a Judeo-Christian view of the human person, his inherent dignity, and the right ordering of sexual passions.

In the days of the Edomites, the Jebusites, the Canaanites, and all the other “ites”, the descendants of Abraham stood quite alone in their opposition to the orgiastic cultures with which they were surrounded.

John the Baptist’s severed head ended up on a platter not because he heralded a Messiah, but because he condemned Herod’s perversions. And early Christians were put to death not just because of their unwillingness to worship roman gods, but because their regard for the sacrality of sex was a living condemnation of roman sexual norms.

It’s hard to imagine that pederasty too won’t one day again be normalized by a culture which has already put Christianity to death, and is even now rushing to elevate the ancient perversions to “the new normal”.

For now, the only thing that stands in the way is a skewed sense of human dignity that sees no issue with slaughtering 4000 infants in the womb, but still gets up in arms over a guy who showers with children. At least it shows that our society still maintains some remnant of sexual decency not yet destroyed by our frenzied rush to pleasure ourselves.

In 2011, Guam's Office Office of the Attorney General reported that 434 children were sexually abused on Guam over the previous year, a figure the AG rightly called a “staggering amount”. Predictably, certain community leaders expressed horror and the need for more laws, more controls, more enforcement, and frankly, more government.

Wonderful. But some of those community leaders are the same people who are bent on legislatively legitimating the morally permissive culture which, at its fringes, unravels into the sexual exploitation of children which they claim to abhor!

What don’t they get? The attack on Christian moral norms, which traditionally have safeguarded the sacrality of sex for the intimate fruitful bonds of marriage, is the direct cause for the increasing social sanction of sexual depravities of every kind including pedophilia.

So why are we surprised - having already stomped most of sexual decency into puritanical dust - that a man like Sandusky would help himself to the bodies of boys?

In light of our society’s wholesale destruction of our Christian moral roots, it appears Jerry’s only crime is that he “jumped the gun” in our culture’s mad race to Gomorrah.

HIGH NOON FOR THE USCCB

While commentators and analysts continue to decipher and parse the full impact of the Supreme Court’s decision on the Affordable Care Act (aka “Obamacare”), there is one thing that is certain: it is now “High Noon” for the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops.

Up until the court ruling on June 28, there was considerable hope that the ACA, or at least its funding mechanism, would be ruled unconstitutional, relieving the bishops of the task of going head to head with the President over the contraceptive mandate.

However, as we all know, the law has been upheld and there is now nothing separating the U.S. Catholic Church from an all-out showdown with the Federal Government on August 1.

On that date, most Catholic employers will be forced to include full coverage of morally unacceptable contraceptives, sterilization, and abortifacients in health insurance policies for their employees.

The penalty, or “tax”, for not doing so, will not apply until 2014. So while they won’t immediately be fined, Catholic employers, on August 1, will still have to either cancel health coverage for their employees or become material participants in moral evil.

Curiously, while there has been much focus on the contraceptive mandate, little has been said about another “final rule” which was issued this past March. The rule mandates taxpayer funding of insurance coverage that includes elective abortion.

The mechanism to redirect our insurance premiums to pay for abortions was always present in the law, and was exposed by the USCCB office of legal counsel in early 2010 before the bill’s passage. But other than the USCCB’s letter to the Obama administration protesting the provision, little else was said or done.

Perhaps the USCCB felt their fears allayed by Obama’s eleventh hour executive order barring taxpayer funding for abortions, a move that pacified a group of Democrat “pro-life” hold-outs, and gave him enough votes to pass the bill by the thinnest of margins.

However, it appears once again, the USCCB has underestimated this President’s voracious appetite for abortion.

The USCCB seems to have also underestimated Obama’s audacious willingness to boldly lie. On September 9, 2009, before a Joint Session of Congress and the whole nation, President Obama stated that abortion funding would not be included in his health plan. He underscored that promise with the signing of the aforementioned eleventh hour executive order.

However, this past March, while Congress was in recess, he authorized the final rule that activates the mechanism enabling the funding of elective abortion through the state health exchanges. What’s more, the final rule mandates that the funding for abortion be essentially hidden.

The rule forbids insurance companies from including information about abortion coverage in any marketing or promotional materials, and states that it can only be disclosed “as a part of the summary of benefits and coverage explanation at the time of enrollment.” In other words, abortion coverage is in the fine print and will be purposely easy to miss.

What’s not to understand about this man? His dedication to abortion is simply matchless. I will stop short of calling it “Faustian”, but his abortion record, as compiled by Life News, demonstrates a sleepless dedication to the abortion cause with a minimum of one pro-abortion action every two weeks since he was inaugurated, beginning with the lifting of the Mexico City policy which sent millions of our tax dollars overseas to fund abortions in third-world countries.

And when added to his opposition to the ban on partial birth abortion, his opposition to medical treatment for children who survive a failed abortion, his radical support of Planned Parenthood, and his authorship and advocacy of the Freedom of Choice Act, which would negate every pro-life law on the books in every state, what else are we to conclude? The man the USCCB will have to face at High Noon on August 1 is no ordinary lefty gun-slinger.

Many individual bishops have begun to recognize the gathering gloom and have spoken out bravely against the encroaching evil in this dark law. But the general party line of the USCCB still reflects hopes for presidential leniency and a workable compromise.

Perhaps they know something about Barack Obama that we don’t know. Perhaps they know of a back room deal already in the works that will let the Church off the hook. Perhaps they are thinking that the showdown at High Noon on August 1 will turn into nothing more than another garden party “Beer Summit”.

Let us all pray for our bishops as High Noon approaches and let us hope for a miracle. But let us also be prepared to say with Dr. James Dobson: “I WILL NOT pay the surcharge for abortion services. … So come and get me if you must, Mr. President. I will not bow before your wicked regulation.”

RUMBLE IN RIO

In a recent column, we took a stab at a possible cause for the shocking increase in the number of Catholics who believe abortion to be morally acceptable. In summary, I suggested, that while the Church officially condemns abortion, Her teaching is undermined by Church ministers who continue to publicly accommodate, excuse, and even honor pro-abortion Catholic politicians, and in so doing, lead rank and file Catholics astray.

As sad and scandalous as this may be, the increasing moral acceptance of abortion among Catholics may have a more insidious cause: Environmentalism. I say “insidious” because it comes disguised as a great good: care of the earth. But let us define “Environmentalism”.

The key is in the “ism” which denotes an ideology beyond mere environmental concern.

A quick internet search of “Environmentalism” will turn up references to the use of environmental issues to effect a political agenda which includes the imposition of an ideology which often advances abortion and other brutal population control measures in the name of saving the planet.

It is no coincidence that almost all of Environmentalism’s major figures are radical abortion advocates. Al Gore, its most recognized prophet, has urged “fertility management” and “population stabilization” as the central solution to global warming, and is advocating “international people rationing” through the United Nations Population Fund. Of course, no one has to guess at what those terms really mean.

Bill Gates, a recent convert to climate-change alarmism, is pushing (and funding) de-population through “new vaccines”. The World Wildlife Fund is notoriously advancing a pro-abortion agenda worldwide. And the Sierra Club is responsible for commissioning the infamous 1968 book “Population Bomb”, which, despite its failed and discredited Malthusian predictions, nevertheless provided the “scare” necessary to advance the aggressive distribution of contraceptives and the elevation of abortion to a constitutional right.

Evidence connecting Environmentalism with the institutionalized destruction of the unborn abounds, and the purveyors of the Culture of Death have become increasingly adept at translating images of polar bears stranded on melting ice flows into a mounting pile of dead babies.

In fact, the global warming issue has provided the anti-human movement with its most effective platform yet, which is why its alarmist promoters are indefatigable about connecting the words “man-made” to “global warming”. In short, if the earth is warming, and people are the cause, then there are too many people, and their numbers must be reduced. Thus the “healing” of the planet and sympathy for polar bears soothes the conscience as we sterilize ourselves and increasingly accept murder in the womb.

One might wonder why all the scientific and social contortions in order to advance the moral acceptability of abortion. Actually, it’s easy to understand. The act of destroying a defenseless child whose screams are drowned in amniotic fluid while her little body is chopped to pieces is so heinous that its advancement demands a disguise, and stranded polar bears are simply easier to show.

Gore’s proposed catastrophic scenario of millions perishing due to global warming has been especially effective in influencing those who might otherwise reject abortion as evil to quietly accept abortion as a “necessary evil”, and even a moral duty in the service of reducing one’s “carbon footprint”.

However, Gore’s gig might be up. His voracious de-population Malthusian machine seems to have slammed into a wall at the recent Rio “Earth Summit”, at which, the tiny Vatican, with the aid of an unlikely alliance, stripped language from the final conference document which would have allowed environmental solutions to be linked to “reproductive rights” (i.e. population control: sterilizations, contraceptives, and abortion).

The unlikely alliance included the likes of Russia, whose government is relatively religiously indifferent, and the Leftist-governed, Nicaragua. In fact, it was Nicaragua, not the Vatican who called out the U.S.-Hillary Clinton-led pro-abortion delegation for its lying language and demanded that they cease to “shadow box around the term ‘reproductive rights’” which, Nicaragua said, “every country knows is code at the UN for abortion.” WOW!!!

Feminists and environmentalists were staggered, calling the outcome of the Rio conference “very bad” and “a major turn for the worse.”

Had it been just the Vatican and a handful of “Catholic” countries, the protest against “reproductive rights” could be labeled as “the undue influence of the Catholic Church”, which to the pro-aborts would have simply meant that they have more work to do.

But the fact that nations normally not aligned with the Vatican, took the lead in trouncing the purveyors of the Culture of Death, has sent the pro-aborts reeling. In short, the rumble in Rio marks a major turning point for the Gospel of Life. Now...if only Catholics will catch on.

EULOGY FOR MICHAEL

(Note: June 25, 2012 marks the third anniversary of the death of Michael Jackson.)

To say that Michael Jackson was talented is like saying Mozart was a good piano player. The abilities of both men, especially in their youth, surpass description. Mozart was concertizing and wowing the royalty of Europe before the age of reason, and Jackson’s prodigious output needs no reminder.

Upon his death, there were endless broadcasts of Jackson’s performances. But while the likes of “Thriller” and “Bad” remain matchless on so many artistic levels, it was his early performances as the youngest member of the “Jackson 5” that grabbed at the heart and memory.

Sure, there was the sadness that came from watching this precocious, beaming, charismatic child and knowing what later became of him. But there was also a sense of wonder, wonder about where such gifts come from given that Jackson was too young to have been taught to perform like this.

It’s obvious when watching the seven-year old Michael that he was not some “trick pony”, some kid with a good voice who was trained to sing and dance. Such raw energy and ability are inexplicable. Like Mozart, who left both master musicians and aristocrats shaking their heads in awe, Michael, too, had something “from beyond.”

Even to refer to Jackson’s childhood performances as “performances” is somehow inadequate. They were more of an external display of an internal event, a “coming to the surface”, an eruption of something he intuitively felt and heard during which people just happened to be watching.

There is a scene in the movie “Amadeus” which perhaps captures this “inner hearing” experienced by the likes of Michael and Mozart - this “something from beyond” for which the rest of us mere mortals must wait for a concert to hear.

Mozart’s life is in shambles. He is broke, in debt, his marriage is crumbling, and at this particular point in the movie, his mother-in-law is raving at him in a high-pitched wail of insults and complaints. Mozart’s expression goes from despair to a daze. As the camera zooms in on him, the mother-in-law’s screams fade into the strains of a soprano aria.

Dreamlike, Mozart absents himself from the mad scene, walks to the next room, slowly shuts the door, and begins writing down notes. The music Mozart is “hearing” increases in volume, drowning out the screaming in the next room, and the theater is filled with the sounds of one of the most incomprehensibly beautiful pieces of music ever composed: the Queen of the Night aria from The Magic Flute.

Later in the movie, the composer Salieri, upon clandestinely acquiring and examining a composition Mozart had just written, gasps: “But they showed no corrections of any kind. Not one. He had simply written down music already finished in his head. Page after page of it as if he were just taking dictation. And music, finished as no music is ever finished. Displace one note and there would be diminishment. Displace one phrase and the structure would fall.”

Indeed, Mozart’s compositions rarely evinced evidence of effort. It was as if “he were just taking down dictation” as Salieri exclaimed. But dictation from whom?

One gets this same glimpse of an otherworldly source when watching the young Michael Jackson. One “gasps” at the talent which is at once “raw” and “finished”.  It’s as if Michael is simply “taking dictation”, translating into movement and sound something only he can hear.

It’s just a thought, but i sometimes wonder if God doesn’t make such creatures with extraordinary, incredible gifts in order to shock us awake. Perhaps He “hopes” that by wowing us with a creature too amazing to ignore, we might transcend the creature and glimpse the Creator. It’s as if God wants to say: “Watch this!” St. Paul tells us in Romans that God can be known through his works. Sometimes it’s a dazzling sunset or a magnificent mountain. And sometimes it’s a Mozart or a Michael.

In the end, it appears that both lives were immolated upon the pyre of their own internal creative fires. Mozart died at 35, and it might be said that Michael also “died” at 35 (though his body followed 15 years later).

History has been kind to Mozart. The magnificence of his work has diminished the specter of his personal peccadilloes of which there were many. But Jackson may have lived too long for history to do him the same favor. Sadly, Michael’s “last performance” was his slow, painful self-deconstruction, carried out in full view on the world’s stage.

Yet, Jackson still died before his time. And one does wonder if God, having created these burning creatures, isn’t moved by mercy to steal them away before their lights burn out altogether.

A SIN OF SCANDAL

A recent Knights of Columbus-Marist poll found that the use of contraceptives and same-sex marriage are believed to be “morally acceptable” by the majority of U.S. Catholics, and at least 25% of Catholics also support abortion as a “morally acceptable” choice.

The poll results should come as no surprise. Polling of Catholic opinion has been showing an increase in these numbers for several years. As a Catholic community we would do well to look at such numbers as a “report card”. Obviously something is terribly wrong. But what?

Presently, there is much at stake. Unless the Supreme Court dumps Obamacare, we are headed for a showdown with Federal Law as of August 1, the date the HHS mandate will force Catholic employers to provide contraceptive coverage for their employees.

The bishops are counting on rank and file Catholics to rally to their cause in the name of Religious Freedom. But, as you can see, most Catholics have a different idea of religious freedom: freedom from the Church’s moral teaching! But where did we get such an idea?

Perhaps the key to understanding the disconnect can be found in an analysis of why it is that most Catholics do not see a dichotomy between holding views in direct conflict with Catholic Teaching and being “good Catholics”.

After all, we see big-name Catholics such as the late Ted Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry, and Joe Biden - all of whom have taken public stands contrary to Catholic moral teaching, not only persist in their errors without episcopal reprimand, but continue to receive Communion and even accorded positions of honor at Catholic events and institutions. It’s only natural that the “rest of us Catholics” would believe it’s okay for us to do the same.

However, such deference to those who promote the legislation of sin is a sin itself, the  Sin of Scandal. And according to the Catechism...it’s a Mortal Sin: “Scandal is an attitude or behavior which leads another to do evil. The person who gives scandal becomes his neighbor's tempter. He damages virtue and integrity; he may even draw his brother into spiritual death. Scandal is a grave offense if by deed or omission another is deliberately led into a grave offense.” (CCC2284)

Contraceptive acts, homosexual acts (assumed in same-sex marriage) and abortion are defined by the Catechism as grave evil. And there is no question that the leniency and privilege shown the likes of Kennedy, Pelosi, and Biden, have led to the general acceptance of grave evils as “morally acceptable” by the general Catholic population.

A case in point is the contest between former speaker Pelosi and her Archbishop. Pelosi is a classic case of “Catholic girl gone wild”. She has gone beyond just being on the opposite side of Catholic moral teaching, she has erroneously (and comically) employed Catholic theology to substantiate her positions.

To his credit, Archbishop Niederauer of San Francisco has publicly contested her views but has said nothing about her “worthiness” to receive Communion. (By the way, because of her position and the public consequences of her positions, worthiness to receive Communion is not a private matter between Pelosi and her priest.)

Archbishop Wuerl of Washington D.C., where Pelosi also lives, has not only NOT engaged her erroneous views, he has declared that he will NOT deny her Communion and even referred to appeals to deny her Communion a “distraction” from the “progress” he feels he is making in “conveying the pro-life message to the Democratic party” (which declares its support for abortion in its national platform.)

Advocates for the denial of Communion to pro-abortion politicians point to Canon 915 which states that those “who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin, are not to be admitted to holy communion.”

Pope Benedict further clarified the application of this canon when he advised in 2004 that when a “person’s formal cooperation (with abortion) becomes manifest” (public) “his Pastor should meet with him, instructing him about the Church’s teaching, informing him that he is not to present himself for Holy Communion until he brings to an end the objective situation of sin, and warning him that he will otherwise be denied the Eucharist.”

More recently, Archbishop Raymond Burke, Prefect for the Apostolic Signatura (the highest legal authority in the Church) stated: There’s not a question that a Catholic who publicly, and after admonition, supports pro-abortion legislation is not to receive Holy Communion and is not to be given Holy Communion.”

Bishops like Wuerl have been seen as progressive and even charitable in their leniency. Maybe so, but now “the chickens have come home to roost”. Pelosi, more than anyone in Congress, is responsible for the passage of Obamacare and the evil mandate that these same bishops are now asking us to oppose.

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INCORRUTIBITER GENUIT

I was going to move on to another topic this week but I happened upon an interesting debate that has prompted me to share further on a critical aspect of the Perpetual Virginity of Mary.

The debate is over the proper interpretation and presentation of John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, the name given to a series of talks given by the Pope on the subject of human sexuality. TOB’s most prominent apostle is Christopher West, who has popularized the Pope’s teaching through a series of books, CD’s, DVD’s, and seminars.

The Pope’s treatment of the subject is deeply philosophical and reverently nuanced, however, West’s approach is much less so. Example: where the Pope might refer to “the conjugal act”, West will sometimes say “have sex”. West’s strategic street lingo approach, as well as his questionable interpretation of some aspects of TOB, has provoked criticism and debate.

The debate is not merely academic. There is real evidence that “sex education” - which Theology of the Body essentially is - if not properly framed and nuanced, can produce the exact opposite of what it aims to prevent: illicit and irresponsible sexual behavior.

Exhibit A would be the easily evidenced fevered increase of sexual activity among young people wherever sex education has been introduced into the curriculum, even when presented in an academic and scientific way.

And while West attempts to retain the theological framework of TOB, the language reduction is nevertheless provocative, e.g. “having sex” stirs images in a way that “conjugal act” does not.

The debate over West’s approach has pitted some big names in Catholic academia against each other. One of those debates involves well-known pro-life author and academic Dr. Janet Smith and the equally well-known and much-revered Dr. Alice Von Hildebrand.

Von Hildebrand is critical of West, and Smith has come to his defense. The debate has several aspects to it but the item that caught my attention was a discussion over whether or not West should have referred to Mary’s “bloody placenta”. Von Hildebrand took issue with the reference, which provoked the following response from Smith:

“She (Von Hildebrand) believes it is incorrect to think that Mary may have expelled a bloody placenta. Pregnant wombs have placentas. Did not Mary’s? Would it be wrong to think it might have been bloody?...Scripture itself makes reference to Mary’s womb and breasts; is the placenta really so objectionable that it could not be mentioned?”

If you are feeling uneasy about such a discussion, you should. As you might guess, the Church has traditionally approached the physiological aspects of the birth of Jesus with sacred caution. In fact, Pope John XXIII forbade any further public speculation about it.

However, the issue jumped into public view a few years ago upon the release of the movie THE NATIVITY STORY. The film portrayed the birth of Jesus as a natural birth - complete with labor pains and presumably an expelled placenta.

Though well-received by the Catholic press and even prominent clergy, others cautioned that the depiction of Mary in labor poses problems to two Marian dogmas: the Immaculate Conception and the Perpetual Virginity.

As you will recall, bringing forth children “in sorrow” (labor) (Gen 3:16), is the penalty to the woman for Original Sin. The Dogma of the Immaculate Conception holds that Mary was preserved from Original Sin and thus she is not subject to its penalty, i.e. Mary did not birth Jesus “in sorrow”.

In regard to Perpetual Virginity, the Church teaches that not only did Mary never have conjugal relations, she remained “incorrutibiter genuit" which means she “begot (Jesus) incorruptibly”. Aquinas puts it thus: “Mary gave birth painlessly in miraculous fashion without opening of the womb and without injury to the hymen...” (Summa Theologiae III.28.2).

In other words, not only was Jesus miraculously conceived, he was also miraculously birthed. And the fact that our Church has solemnly defined this since the Synod of Capua in 392 A.D., demonstrates that the Church, early on, saw the danger of speculation about things such as a “bloody placenta” and sought to put a seal on it. Apparently West and Smith didn’t get the message.

ENGAGING THE CHALLENGE TO THE PERPETUAL VIRGINITY OF MARY

In a previous column, entitled THE ATTACK ON MARY, we noted that of all the things that drive anti-Catholics nuts about Catholic beliefs, the thing that drives them most nuts is what we believe about Mary.

The Aeiparthenos (Ever Virgin)

And of those things which we believe about Mary, such as the Immaculate Conception and her bodily Assumption, the most irksome, to non and anti-Catholics, is our belief in her Perpetual Virginity. In fact, the very words “Perpetual Virginity” seem to provoke a cringe similar to that provoked by the sound of fingernails scraping a chalkboard.

The intent in this column is to share a few thoughts on how to engage the “Protestant” disbelief in the Perpetual Virginity, but we should first note that a disbelief in the value of consecrated virginity in general is, at its root, a fundamental Protestant tenet promulgated by “the First Protestant”, Martin Luther.

While Luther may have had some legitimate beefs relative to the so-called “sale of indulgences”, it seems that his real itch involved celibacy. In 1521, Luther wrote: I see myself insensible, hardened, sunk in idleness, alas! seldom in prayer, and not venting one groan over God’s Church. My unsubdued flesh burns me with devouring fire. In short, I … am devoured by the flesh, by luxury, indolence, idleness, somnolence.

A few years later, Luther wrote to a group of nuns: “In such cases (no longer wishing to remain celibate) it is time to run away, leaving the convent and all it entails behind.” Luther went  on to explain: “Though womenfolk are ashamed to admit to this... a woman has no control over herself. God has made her body to be with man...”

Apparently Luther had his own body in mind for he eventually helped himself to the nuns, taking one for his wife and offering another to the Bishop of Mainz (if he would convert) during a Luther-inspired pogrom against celibacy in which scores of German monks and nuns were “liberated” from their monasteries, convents, AND their vows. The story goes downhill from there.

But what about that? What about Luther’s claim that God made a woman’s “body to be with a man.” Ummm, well, yah, and visa versa. However, and without a long dissertation on celibacy: “With God, all things are possible”. So of course, with God’s grace, a man or woman can give his or her body (and soul) entirely to God.

So you might say that Catholics, since we are the only Christians to institutionally place a value on consecrated virginity, are the only true “Full Gospel Church”, i.e. we actually believe that “all things are possible with God”, including consecrated virginity,  and take seriously - for those engaged in particular ministries - St. Paul’s Corinthian exhortation to celibacy (1 Cor 7:8-9). But Luther’s personal peccadillos aside, how do we engage a challenge to our belief in the Perpetual Virginity of Mary?

Usually the challenge is based on one of the ten instances in the New Testament wherein “brothers (and/or sisters) of the Lord” are mentioned. A simple response to this is to point out that Aramaic had no word for “cousins”, and “brother” and/or “sister” was used to reference several degrees of kin.

Another challenge is based on Matthew 1:25 which says: “And he (Joseph) did not know her until she had brought forth her firstborn son.” The implication is that the word “until” assumes that Joseph and Mary had normal marital relations after Jesus was born.

This argument is also easily dispatched by simply referencing other instances in Scripture wherein the word “until” is used, but does not mean that anything different followed: e.g. no one knew the location of Moses’ grave “until this present day” (Deut. 24.6). We still don’t know.

And then of course there is the matter of Jesus, on the cross, entrusting his mother to the apostle, John. If Mary had other children, there would have been no need for Jesus to do this.

Perhaps the easiest and most useful reply, though, is to simply ask the challenger to show you in the Bible where it says that Mary had other children. He or she will resort to the memorized lines about the “brothers of the Lord”. But stay with the program: continue to ask where it says that Mary had other children. Of course, the Bible never says that she does.

The reason this works is because of the “Protestant’s” own belief in “the Bible alone”, i.e. “if it’s not in the Bible, it didn’t happen”. “Protestants” use this principle to discredit the Immaculate Conception, the Assumption, and other doctrines which are not explicit in Scripture. You are simply asking them to use this same principle of “sola scriptura” to prove that Mary was not a Perpetual Virgin. They can’t. End of conversation. (Unless of course you’d like to invite him or her to join the one, true Church!)

WHY IS IT SO DIFFICULT TO DISCUSS MARRIAGE?

That’s the question posed by the editors of THE MEANING OF MARRIAGE, a collection of scholarly essays examining the societal impact of same-sex marriage. Essentially the answer is “because we’ve never had to”, at least not in the way we are forced to discuss it today. 

Though marriage has been at or near the heart of almost every issue of human endeavor, from royal alliances to what to make for dinner, the fundamental male-female nature of marriage has never before been called into question, which is why we find ourselves stammering in defense of marriage after we say “Because....”

In fact, the very fact that we are at a loss for words is sort of an explanation in itself. From the dawn of human consciousness, and quite without instruction other than that which was carved into our bodies, men and women intuited the need to “marry” long before there was a word or a “grunt” for it. It probably went something like this:

Man and woman make baby. Baby can’t take care of itself. Man go hunt and collect berries to feed baby and woman. Sooner or later, man and woman make another baby. Man go hunt some more and collect more berries.

It probably wasn’t out of any external sense of moral obligation that the man did his part to provide and protect. Sons and daughters, in time, meant protection and help when the man could no longer protect or help himself. The permanent bonding necessary to raise a child to adulthood simply derived from the will to survive.

In short, marriage is the organic extension of the procreative act. It proceeds from the very nature of our bodies, which are fundamentally ordered towards generation. All of nature is simply designed to make more of itself. And the life-giving, life-nurturing, life-long thing that we have come to call marriage, which some try to tell us is mere social or religious convention, is really a primordial phenomenon that has, through generations of natural selection, proven to be the most effective model of human survival.

True, both society and religion eventually adapted it, codified it, regulated it, and protected it, but they didn’t create it, and never claimed to. And this is why “same-sex marriage” will never achieve the equality it presumes to seek. Same-sex marriage will forever owe its existence to the state. And irregardless of the rights and status the state might concoct for it, same-sex marriage simply has no history, no primordial roots, and no organic connection to human survival.

This is not because history is homophobic. Same-sex unions of any kind, quite apart from any religious circumscription, are, by their very nature, a Darwinian dead-end. And no legislative or judicial machinations can change that fact.

But this is also why we find it so difficult to defend marriage. Long before same-sex marriage appeared on the legal horizon, heterosexual married couples, through chemical, surgical, or mechanical means, had already divorced sex from its procreative end. And, natural marriage, the organically occurring intuitive relationship between the co-creators of a unique and separate being, once intentionally and artificially stripped of its procreative end, simply has no standing. Thus, our appeals to the procreative purpose of marriage ring with a contraceptive thud relative to the increasing din of chants for marriage equality.

In altering its ends, its purpose, we have altered the nature of marriage itself. Empirically speaking, the “good of the spouses” has become the primary end, and child rearing has not only become a secondary end, it has been relegated to an optional marital appendage - something to fit in once educational and career goals are met and before a woman’s biological clock runs out...if at all.

Such a thing is completely new to the human experience. Marriage has never been ultimately about spouses but about progeny. And unintentional sterility aside, everything about marriage is historically, culturally, and socially ordered to support that end. 

That many, if not most, of us have subscribed to this new ordering of the purpose of marriage, leaves us little ground on which to stand, be it in opposition to same-sex marriage or explaining why couples should marry at all.

If gay marriage is okay, why not other kinds?

My letter to the editor challenging the Pacific Daily News editorial of May 14, 2012 advocating for mariage equality. The original editorial can be found here. My response can be found here.