Category: Uncategorized

Red counties, Blue cities.  The political map of the United States shows a decided liberal bias in the major population centers of the nation, and a clear conservative bias in rural America.  Blue cities create Blue states in federal elections and for governorships because statewide voting is based on the popular vote.  Yet the legislatures of many Blue states remain conservative because their counties are almost all Red strongholds.

The popular vote clearly favors major population centers and is leading to the disenfranchisement of rural Americans on statewide and federal issues.  Cities alone should not be driving statewide policy and the selection of the U.S. president.  For example, from a purely material perspective, cities require additional infrastructure for transportation, police and fire services, general code enforcement, criminal and civil justice and waste management.  Increased infrastructure means increased state (and sometimes federal) taxation, and larger or additional social programs that may not be needed nor favored in rural areas.  And although the poverty level is about equal in urban and rural areas, cities have a higher population of impoverished individuals to support economically, which also leads to higher taxation and a proliferation of social programs.  People living in rural America also tend to be older than those in the cities and suburbs, which leads to different needs, including medical, which are often underserved because the focus is on city residents.  From a religious and moral perspective, city residents and rural inhabitants vary significantly on the practice of religion and have varying viewpoints on key contested moral issues including abortion, the acceptance of homosexual practices and immigration.

There is nothing sacrosanct about conducting elections according to a popular vote.  The framers of our constitution recognized that the popular vote was inherently unfair to smaller states, and an electoral college was created to elect the president.  With the rapid growth of cities since the advancement of the industrial age in America, circa 1865, a new approach is needed to preserve the rights and the voices of those that live in rural America.  An electoral college within a state is the only proposal that will preserve the rights of rural Americans, just like the federal electoral college is the only system that preserves the rights of smaller states in selecting a president for the United States.

The structure for a State Electoral College is simple.  Each county and city in the state is assigned a number of electoral votes based on its population.  Cities will obviously have more than counties.  But the total number of electoral votes needed for certain decisions will be greater than the electoral votes of all the cities in the state combined.  Accordingly, at least some counties must vote for the measure or the candidate in order for passage.  The result is representation for rural counties in state-wide elections. 

A State Electoral College should be required in each state for at least the following decisions: 1) election of the governor, 2) election of federal senators, 3) casting federal electoral votes for the president, 4) amendment of the U.S. Constitution, 5) amendment of the state constitution, and 6) any other statewide issues or positions presented to the electorate.

With a requirement that at least some rural counties are required to make statewide policy changes and elect statewide and federal executives, rural Americans will once again have a voice in their own governance.

Republicans in Red States should heed the warning in the rapid change of the Commonwealth of Virginia and the State of Georgia, seemingly into Blue States within a very short period of time.  That change was accomplished solely by the growth of large population centers outside Washington, DC and in Atlanta, where opinion leaders are largely liberal.  Republicans should act immediately to enact a State Electoral College in states where they control the legislature and the executive branch before their cities and large population centers swell (potentially from a new amnesty for illegal aliens), irrevocably determining the future of their states – and of the United States. There’s one other benefit to a State Electoral College.  A State Electoral College would negate any potential fraud in large population centers.  No matter how many fraudulent votes are obtained in the cities through chaos and lax controls on balloting, those cities would still only have the same number of electoral votes.  Elections would be smoother, more predictable and less subject to cheating, which almost exclusively takes place in cities and large population centers.  The 2020 election proved it is time for a major reform of elections in America.  State Electoral Colleges should top the list of meaningful reforms and in so doing will give rural Americans a voice in statewide and national decisions once again.

Does this sound farfetched?  Communist China becomes so despised by the rest of the world for inflicting COVID-19 on us that demand for Chinese goods and cheap Chinese labor falls off a cliff.  The world no longer wants China to supply its manufactured goods.  Chinese factories close, Chinese workers have no income and the economy of Communist China spirals down.  A severe depression begins in China, let’s say in October, 2020.  Meanwhile, the United States takes action against China for the COVID-19 debacle by demanding repayment of the stimulus required to sustain the U.S. economy (maybe $4 trillion), as do a host of other nations – further driving China to effective bankruptcy.

What’s a despotic regime to do?  Xi Jinping, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, has already consolidated complete control in China.  Is it unreasonable to think that he would use that power to do what many have done before him in similar circumstances (think Hitler’s Germany)?  To wit: begin a war.  Wars unite people, sometimes blindly.  And they provide jobs to produce war material.  Now is also a good time for China to strike because they control so much of our manufacturing – including things that really matter like antibiotics, other critical pharmaceuticals and infrastructure components.  If China (along with Russia, Iran, Venezuela and Cuba) wins such a war, they become the world’s super power, something their leadership has openly stated is their destiny.  If they lose, they’re bankrupt anyway and perhaps we’ll rebuild them like we did Germany and Japan, and bring back their economy.  Of course Xi won’t survive to see that, but he will have had his moment in the sun.  The prospect of such fame alone may be enough to get a man like him to try it.

•  Their Last Supper.  Saint Epiphanius (d. 403) asserted that the Gospel of John was written by a disciple of Jesus who left the fold when Jesus delivered his sermon on the Eucharist, but returned later after Jesus rose from the dead.  Whether that’s true or not, St. John’s gospel tells us that many people left Jesus because the teachings about consuming his body and blood were too difficult to understand and too much for them to accept.  It is a difficult teaching … one that our intellect would like to reject based on sensory experience, but our wills maintain based on faith.  If it was that hard to accept when Jesus himself pronounced the doctrine, how much harder is it today for those Catholics exposed to the numerous sacrileges of the Eucharist?  Practices at many Novus Ordo churches reinforce disbelief with a casual approach to the sacred body and blood of our Lord.  Communion in the hand, communion standing, communion distributed by “ministers” whose attire and attitude all project the commonplace, invite the confused or questioning Catholic to reject Christ’s teaching and follow those who walked away.  Unfortunately, it may be too late to come back when they see Jesus really meant what he said.  Praxi lex est lex credendi. 

•  Immunized Against the Truth.  It seems nearly impossible to bring a Novus Ordo Catholic into the traditional Faith of the Church.  So many are convinced they know already what the Church teaches, when (having been there myself), they have only a faint understanding of the true depth of the Church’s teaching on the sacrifice of the Mass, the meaning of suffering, the preeminent role of Mary, the fewness of the saved and so much more.  It’s as if they received a vaccination containing a weakened strain of the Faith, and having successfully absorbed it into their souls, they now resist the full version.  Only a more powerful, forthright and frequent exposure to the fullness of Catholic teaching, most readily found in traditional Catholic parishes, will overcome their “immunization.” 

•  Un-Orthodox Targets.  The Wall Street Journal ran an opinion piece today on the multiple recent attacks in New York against ultra-Orthodox Jews.  The article explains, “Their values have never been so out of step with the city where they live.  They have many children in a time when most Americans have few.  Global warming doesn’t rate on their lists of top concerns.  They lead traditional lives, directed toward God, and maintain traditional families.  They don’t know the meaning of ‘genderqueer’.”  That description could just as easily describe traditional Catholics.  And although anti-semitism is a disease all its own, if the author’s conclusion is true that such differences make otherwise good people look the other way when the ultra-Orthodox are targeted, traditional Catholic parishes should also be prepared.  Our parish has an armed guard at every mass.

• Death as Witness.  The heroic martyrs of the early Church were willing to die for the Faith – often in horrible, painful and public spectacles.  Their witness inspired many to join the Church at the cost of their own lives, and the record contains more than a few examples of executioners or those assisting with the execution of a martyr joining the Church and dying alongside those whom they were appointed to kill.  Contrast that willingness to die with the motivation and drive of the proponents of Islam.  Their early founders were motivated by religious zeal as well.  Mohammed’s initial focus was the destruction of idols erected by pagans.  But the principal difference is that the early Muslims were not chiefly willing to die for their faith, they were driven to kill for their faith.  Does this obvious distinction not suggest a difference in the spiritual origin of the two religions?  Even today, apostasy from Islam is punishable by death whereas apostasy from Christianity has no earthly consequence – only a spiritual punishment.
• Canonizing Heretics?  The canonizations of Pope Paul VI (authorized the Novus Ordo Mass), Pope John XXIII (convened Vatican Council II) and Archbishop Oscar Romero (proponent of Liberation Theology), are noteworthy if for no other reason than that they were revolutionaries within the Church and heroes of the Left.  But they’re also interesting because according to Warren Carroll’s History of Christendom, heretical antipopes of the past have a history of canonizing their revolutionary heroes.  When you consider the “miracles” attributable to Paul VI are rather unexceptional, the canonization of John XXIII went through by waiving a miracle, and the canonization of Oscar Romero involved no miracles because he was suddenly declared a martyr, you have to wonder whether the past is repeating itself with modernist heretics at the helm.
• Pushovers.  When the Muslim heretics swept through the Christian territories of the Levant, North Africa and even into Europe, many towns and cities fell before them without a fight.  The Persian Zoroastrians put up a better resistance than the old Roman outposts manned by Christians.  Local populations subjected to the threat of the Mohammedan advance often converted almost entirely to Islam, and so they remain today with the sole exception of Spain.  Apparently, the threat of death for apostasy has the same motivation to stay Muslim as did the threat of death for resistance during the conquest.  The West faces a similar scourge today and Christian adherents are bowing down to the new gods of materialism and relativism without a fight.  The threat of disapproval for taking a stand against the radical environmental agenda or perhaps losing a job for resistance to the homosexual agenda, is too much to bear for modern man – even a modern pope.  It won’t be long before the churches are closed or are converted into coffee houses and condominiums, like the glorious churches of the East were converted into mosques.  But despite the conquests of the past, God preserved a faithful remnant, and out of that remnant grew Catholic Spain, her reconquista and her conversion of the New World.  He will do it again.  And until then, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord (Joshua 24:15).

I’m not a theologian.  But as a lawyer, I’m pretty good with reasoning and logic.  And logic has me wondering whether the Novus Ordo Mass could be considered illicit.  If the Novus Ordo Mass was not authorized, it might be valid but illicit.  And if that’s the case, a strong argument could be made that attending a Novus Ordo mass is a grave sin.  For example, the masses of the SSPX are valid because the priests are, in fact, ordained, but illicit because they are not authorized to say Mass.  Accordingly, Catholics are routinely counseled to avoid SSPX masses.

So the next question is whether the Novus Ordo Mass was authorized.  Did Pope Paul VI have the authority to write a new radical Mass, as he did with the Novus Ordo?  The Papal Oath, taken by all newly-elected pontiffs states:

“Disciplinam et ritum Ecclesiae, sicut inveni, et a sanctis praecessoribus meis traditum reperi, illibatum custodire.” (“I promise to keep inviolate the discipline and the liturgy of the Church as I have found them and as they were transmitted by my holy predecessors.”)  

If Pope Paul VI broke this oath by failing to keep inviolate the liturgy (and the discipline) of the Church as he found them and as they were transmitted by his holy predecessors, could such a rite be legitimately considered licit?  As with the priests of SSPX, whose masses are valid but illicit, surely the Novus Ordo masses must be valid.*  But are they licit?  And if they are not licit because Paul VI broke his oath in instituting the Novus Ordo rite, they should be avoided in the same way people are counseled to avoid SSPX masses.

Here is the argument, laid out as syllogisms.  Decide for yourself.

First syllogism:

Major Premise: A Mass that is not authorized is illicit.  Minor Premise: The masses of SSPX priests are not authorized, because SSPX priests are not authorized to say mass.  Conclusion: The masses of SSPX are illicit.

Second syllogism:

Major Premise: A Mass that is not authorized is illicit.  Minor Premise: The Novus Ordo rite was not authorized because Pope Paul VI broke his Papal Oath in instituting it.  Conclusion: The Novus Ordo mass is illicit.

*Section 1248(1) of Canon Law addresses how to fulfill the Sunday obligation.  According to that Canon, participating in a mass celebrated according to a “Catholic rite” fulfills the obligation.  If the Novus Ordo mass is not an authorized “Catholic rite,” it may not fulfill the Sunday obligation, and therefore might not even be considered valid.

It is now impossible to maintain a respectful neutrality in the culture wars.  And it seems the left is winning more converts every day, as liberalism is now dominant and has become the default position for those incapable of thinking for themselves.  Fear is driving the conversions.  The end result will be the complete debasement of the human person, and persecution for those who dare to resist.

My county has long been a reliable home for conservative Republicans in a blue state.  Regardless of who won the state-wide offices, the county was well-run, the taxes low and the public schools were not too far gone down the path of liberal indoctrination.  But all that is over now.  After the last election, the county executive, the county representatives to the state legislature and most of the other important county offices all went to liberal Democrats.  The latest topics in the local paper are physician-assisted suicide and a transgender story hour for kids in the public libraries.  How did this happen?

Opposition to the Presidency of Donald Trump has forced the liberals to show the far-reaching power they have kept hidden from the masses since 1954, when they successfully stopped their exposure by Joseph McCarthy.  The continuous barrage of negative coverage on Trump,  the 24-hour news cycle of talking points and fake news designed to thwart his agenda and advance theirs, endorsement of leftist ideology by a liberal pope and entertainment elites, and social pressure to conform have nudged decent people into accepting the liberal movement.  “If you can’t beat them, join them.” 

And so now people everywhere are being forced to choose.  Are you a “reasonable person” like the thought leaders that you hear all around you?  Do you acknowledge the need to control people, their movements and reproduction, because of so-called climate change?  Don’t you think homosexual behavior is just as natural as, well, that which got you here?  Isn’t it ok for cross-dressing men to read stories about their “quirks” to little boys in the library?  Shouldn’t people be able to take their lives whenever they want to?  Even teenagers.  And who says infanticide is so bad after all?  If you demur on any of these little action items of the left, you better keep your mouth shut.  You could lose your job.  You could end up in court.  But, wait, there’s more….

The Wall Street Journal published an article yesterday that demonstrates how despotic regimes will be able to make full use of artificial intelligence technology to identify, track and destroy their opposition.  Frankly, it won’t be hard to find that opposition.  I was surprised to see the other day, on some obscure site that “finds” people, that I was correctly identified by name, age, birthdate and address … and that I was opposed to “marriage equality.”  Yes, I guess that’s an important item to log in a public database.  Coming soon will be a more complete entry with my photo, so that my face can be recognized by government cameras just about everywhere, and other markers of my “social credit,” such as whether I have a handgun (I do) and my “radical” Catholic religion (I attend the traditional Latin Mass).  Faced with what is right around the corner, is it any wonder people are asking themselves, “Why not join them?  It’s so much easier.  If I can just demonstrate that I’ve ‘evolved’ (as the left is so fond of saying), and get my database corrected, maybe they’ll leave me alone.  First step, register as a Democrat.”

Think again.  The goal of the left is not that you should be left alone.  Would they need to destroy their opposition if the goal is freedom?  Liberalism is the tool of Satan.  And his goal has always been the complete debasement of the human person: abortion, homosexual acts, suicide, gender confusion, same-sex “marriage,” bodily mutilation, pornography, and more.  Coming soon to complete the debasement must be beastiality and polygamy.  And until you are actually doing something that demonstrates your debasement, you will be suspect and a target.  

Since you can’t escape, even with apparent acquiescence, you might as well fight.  Speak out, write letters to the editor, picket the worst of the ideologues.  Face the artificial intelligence, the drones and the persecution.  And keep your eyes open for leadership to coalesce the band of true resistance into a powerful movement.  God will provide.

 

• Blessed Lawyer Mary? Women trying to decide between a career or motherhood need look no further for advice than the Mother of God.  Although Mary’s appearances are few in the gospels, her critical role as mother is unmistakable.  Jesus himself, having known and loved her as his own mother for 33 years, continues her motherhood over all the Church at the crucifixion.  Some might say, “She didn’t have a choice but to be a mother in that male-dominated culture that kept her down (which would mean Jesus continued her ‘oppression’).”  But ponder for a moment if she had a different role.  Somehow it doesn’t seem very impressive, or comforting to think of the Blessed Lawyer Mary, or St. Mary – the Professor of God, or even Mary the Middle Manager.  Thank you Mary for choosing motherhood with your fiat.  Your children need you.
• Participation Failure.  Ever notice how the Novus Ordo mass requires participation, but the congregation often falls short in fulfilling their mandated duties?  For example, have you been to a mass where the Gloria is being said (not sung) and it falters mid-way through because people don’t know it except according to the tune?  Or when the Creed is being recited and there is a long pause for the Incarnation (like at the Easter Vigil), but people don’t know how to start it again since it’s not being rambled off?  Or in small masses where the faithful are asked to sing songs they don’t know and the halting attempt or off-tune result is hardly a fitting worship of the Divine? Or even in large masses where the choir can’t sing or a single cantor is uncomfortably off tune?  You can say, “Oh well, they at least are trying.”  But it’s better that they didn’t.  Quiet would be a more fitting offering.  Relying on the laity to “perform” in the N.O. show is like asking for audience participating at a dinner theatre.  You never know what you’re going to get.  At the Tridentine Latin Mass, there is no such risk.  It’s beautiful and prayerful (even at the silent low mass) from beginning to end.