New post on Roma Locuta Est Initial take on latest papal exhortation (Querida Amazonia) by Steven O’Reilly February 12, 2020 (Steven O’Reilly) – Today, the Holy See issued a much anticipated papal exhortation in the wake of the recent Amazon Synod. The exhortation (Querida Amazonia), many had feared, would — among other things — approve the ordination of respected married men (“viri probati”), as well as the ordination of women as “deaconesses.” Though I haven’t had the opportunity to go through the whole exhortation as of yet, I have no doubt there are landmines aplenty to be found within it. However, for now, I wanted to focus on the top of mind items that were feared to be in it, and provide some brief comments. The two questions are (1) the ordination of married men, and (2) the ordination of female ‘deaconesses.’ On these, Pope Francis did what I expected him to do. He did not address the questions head on in his exhortation. As expected, and as is his way, he leaves open the possibility through some ambiguous, tortured, and roundabout way. This is what he has done throughout his pontificate, most notably in Amoris Laetitia on the question of communion for divorced & remarried Catholics. The Commentariat on Team Francis seems to agree. Ivereigh tweeted the exhortation closes off nothing, as have others. Catholics should not rest easy. So, while the exhortation does not affirm that respected married men (viri probati) could or should be ordained as priests, for example, it does not reject the idea. Instead, at the outset of the apostolic exhortation Pope Francis “officially presents” the Amazon Synod’s final document without quoting it in detail.  Pope Francis writes (emphasis added): 2. During the Synod, I listened to the presentations and read with interest the reports of the discussion groups. In this Exhortation, I wish to offer my own response to this process of dialogue and discernment. I will not go into all of the issues treated at length in the final document. Nor do I claim to replace that text or to duplicate it. I wish merely to propose a brief framework for reflection that can apply concretely to the life of the Amazon region a synthesis of some of the larger concerns that I have expressed in earlier documents, and that can help guide us to a harmonious, creative and fruitful reception of the entire synodal process. 3. At the same time, I would like to officially present the Final Document, which sets forth the conclusions of the Synod, which profited from the participation of many people who know better than myself or the Roman Curia the problems and issues of the Amazon region, since they live there, they experience its suffering and they love it passionately. I have preferred not to cite the Final Document in this Exhortation, because I would encourage everyone to read it in full. 4. May God grant that the entire Church be enriched and challenged by the work of the synodal assembly. May the pastors, consecrated men and women and lay faithful of the Amazon region strive to apply it, and may it inspire in some way every person of good will. (Querida Amazonia, 2-4) What does “I would like to officially present the final synod document” really mean? I suspect that it is meaningless or at best uncertain from a magisterial or theological standpoint–but that is probably the point of using it. We are talking about Pope Francis, after all! I don’t recall Pope Francis using similar terminology with regard to any other past synodal document. But, speaking of this final synodal document, Francis does invite pastors, and others, of the Amazon region to “strive to apply it.””Strive to apply it?”  That is what Francis says. So, if we are to understand what Francis intends in his exhortation and what pastors should “strive to apply,” we must, therefore, read the Synod’s final document alongside of it.  As we have noted already.  The papal exhortation is silent on the ordination of respected married men (“viri probabi”). However, the final synod document is not silent. Indeed, it speaks quite favorably of such ordinations. The final synod documents reads (emphasis added): 111.   Many of the Church communities in the Amazonian territory have enormous difficulties in attending the Eucharist. Sometimes it takes not just months but even several years before a priest can return to a community to celebrate the Eucharist, offer the sacrament of reconciliation or anoint the sick in the community. We appreciate celibacy as a gift of God (SC1967 1) to the extent that this gift enables the missionary disciple, ordained to the priesthood, to dedicate himself fully to the service of the Holy People of God. It stimulates pastoral charity, and we pray that there will be many vocations living the celibate priesthood. We know that this discipline “is not demanded by the very nature of the priesthood” (PO 16) although there are many practical reasons for it. In his encyclical on priestly celibacy, St. Paul VI maintained this law and set out theological, spiritual and pastoral motivations that support it. In 1992, the post-synodal exhortation of St. John Paul II on priestly formation confirmed this tradition in the Latin Church (cf. PDV 29). Considering that legitimate diversity does not harm the communion and unity of the Church, but rather expresses and serves it (cf. LG 13; OE 6), witness the plurality of existing rites and disciplines, we propose that criteria and dispositions be established by the competent authority, within the framework of Lumen Gentium 26, to ordain as priests suitable and respected men of the community with a legitimately constituted and stable family, who have had a fruitful permanent diaconate and receive an adequate formation for the priesthood, in order to sustain the life of the Christian community through the preaching of the Word and the celebration of the Sacraments in the most remote areas of the Amazon region. In this regard, some were in favour of a more universal approach to the subject. (Source: Amazonian Synod final document, Chapter V, 111).As seen above, the final synodal document proposed that “criteria and dispositions be established by the competent authority, within the framework of Lumen Gentium 26, to ordain as priests suitable and respected men of the community.” That “competent authority” which the synodal document references is within the “framework” of Lumen Gentium 26, i.e., the competent authority is the local bishop. Thus, the final synod document proposes that the “competent authority”, i.e., the local bishop (not the pope), establish the necessary “criteria and dispositions” to ordain “respected men of the community.” Is this what the pope has invited “pastors” to “strive to apply” (cf Querida Amazonia 4)? Pope Francis does not explicitly say so, but the bread crumbs have been placed down for some enterprising bishop to follow and “strive to apply” himself. Pope Francis’s exhortation certainly invites this reading as a fair one.So, based on the above, I think we might expect the following. Being “officially presented” along with the Querida Amazonia, Pope Francis will order the final synodal document to be placed into the Acta Apostolicae Sedis (AAS). Then, we might expect either one of the following to happen. (1) A small group of bishops will “strive to apply” the proposal (Chapter V, 111) of the synodal document  “officially presented” by Pope Francis. This small group, as a “competent authority” will establish the “criteria and dispositions”  to ordain viri probati. These bishops will then set about ordaining them. (2) Alternatively, an individual bishop in the Amazon region, will “strive to apply” the proposal (Chapter V, 111) of the synodal document  “officially presented” by Pope Francis. This bishop as the “competent authority” will establish the requisite “criteria and dispositions” to ordain viri probati. He will then set about ordaining one or more such priests.Should one or both of the above occur, I do not expect Pope Francis to say a word. Just as he remained silent on the Dubia, on communion for non-Catholic spouses in Germany, on the Scalfari interviews, and so much more, so too will he remain silent on this question as well. As a consequence, the new practice will spread elsewhere, such as Germany. Finally, with regard to ‘deaconesses’ Querida Amazonia is silent. However, if we read the accompanying and “officially presented” final document we will find that in a “large number” of the synod’s consultations that at least some synod fathers requested the ordination of female deacons. However, while the door to the ordination of viri probati seems wide open as noted above–and indeed with an invitation sign to “competent authority”, there does seem to be a speed bump with regard to the deaconess question.  The synod fathers in the final document noted:”The Study Commission on the Diaconate of Women which Pope Francis created in 2016 has already arrived as a Commission at partial findings regarding the reality of the diaconate of women in the early centuries of the Church and its implications for today. We would therefore like to share our experiences and reflections with the Commission and we await its results. (Source: Amazonian Synod final document, Chapter V, 111).So, at least on the question of deaconesses, the exhortation via the “officially presented” final document suggests further study is necessary, and or at least an explicit papal decision is required. Steven O’Reilly is a graduate of the University of Dallas and the Georgia Institute of Technology. A former intelligence officer, he and his wife, Margaret, live near Atlanta with their family. He has written apologetic articles and is author of the recently published Book I of the Pia Fidelis trilogy, The Two Kingdoms. (Follow on twitter at @fidelispia for updates). He asks for your prayers for his intentions.  He can be contacted at StevenOReilly@AOL.com (or follow on Twitter: @S_OReilly_USA)Steven O’Reilly | February 12, 2020 at 8:43 pm | Categories: Uncategorized | URL: https://wp.me/p7YMML-683

https://fromrome.info/2020/02/12/br-bugnolos-open-letter-to-parolin/

NEWS

BR. BUGNOLO’S OPEN LETTER TO PAROLIN

FEBRUARY 12, 2020FROM ROME EDITORLEAVE A COMMENT

Your Excellency,

Pax et bonum!

I know you must be frustrated and I can understand your position. Under Pope Benedict XVI you were the Papal Nuncio to Venezuela, a really troublesome appointment.

But under Bergoglio you are Secretary of State and a Cardinal. Or so you thought.

Now that your office has read most of my website, FromRome.Info, you know well that Benedict never resigned the papacy, and that means you are not a Cardinal nor the Secretary of State. So I can understand your disappointment.

Moreover, having consecrated at least 24 Bishops without a pontifical mandate, you have merited excommunication latae sententiae maybe 24 times, that is, on each occasion after you knew Pope Benedict’s Declaratio did not effect his separation from the Papal Office.

And since you are a graduate of the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy I know you know your canon law, which is a real bummer, because you cannot plead ignorance of what you have done.

But, be assured that I have sympathy for you and want to accompany you in your pain. I feel for you. You did not participate in the Conclave of 2013, so its not canonically your fault that Bergoglio is a usurper and will go down in history as an Antipope. And I can understand fully your internal conflict that your name will go down in history as the faux Secretary of State of an Antipope.

But there is a way to fix this. And it is not by having your sostituto tell the police in the Piazza di San Pietro to attempt to charge me with everything in the book. That looks bad. And a reporter from the Associated Press saw it all. So did the AP camera crew. It even looks worse when the police who took me away did not know the definition of a Catholic priest or what clothing is worn by priests, or even that only priests represent the Church not Franciscan brothers or hermits.

But I can let you in to a big secret. The way around all your problems is being honest with Jesus Christ and with yourself. Just admit that all those around you made a mistake and in good faith you assumed your current duties. You are just as much a victim as the rest of us, who were deceived by a Tweet put out by Giovanni Chirri at 11:58 A.M. seven years and one day ago. And, besides, it is easy to blame everyone else, the doing of which in your case would — ironically — actually be a virtue!

So the way to recover the damage to your reputation is to work with Catholics like myself who want the juridical problem solved. If you want some suggestions, just drop me your contact information in a comment box, and we can meet somewhere in Italian territory.

Don’t be put off because I won’t enter Vatican Territory until I have a letter from you granting me permission. I just got a very bad impression that the Vatican is not concerned about their human rights record or their relations with citizen journalists by something that happened me today, when I came to the Piazza to share my sorrow at Pope Benedict XVI being so badly treated by the Cardinals for 7 years.

So be assured of my prayers: you may not realize it yet, but I am your best friend in all of Rome.

In Saint Francis, a humble servant of Pope Benedict XVI, gloriously reigning still

Br. Alexis Bugnolo

______________

CREDITS: The Featured Image is a collage of images of Cardinal Parolin from Google Image Search, used here in accord with fair use standards for editorial commentary.

Monday, February 10, 2020

http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2020/02/the-mardarin-speaking-cdl-tagle-isnt.html

Is the Mandarin Speaking Cdl. Tagle not Filippino, but “part of a… Chinese Diaspora”? 

Vatican expert John Allen appears to be implying that Cardinal Luis Tagle isn’t really Filippino (who many consider to be the top contender to replace Francis when he resigns or dies), but is
actually “part of a … Chinese diaspora” in the Philippines.”

Tagle is Chinese on both his mother’s side as well as father’s side and didn’t even apparently know how to speak the “local Filipino dialect” until he received “private lessons”:

“Cardinal Tagle[‘s]… mother, Milagro, was the daughter of a Chinese migrant who came to the Philippines… on a business trip… Tagle’s maternal grandmother, who was also of mixed Filipino-Chinese ancestry.”

“… [His] grandfather pressed him to learn Chinese and he took private lessons in both Mandarin and the local Filipino dialect…”

“… Tagle’s biography makes him part of a sort of Chinese diaspora in the Philippines, which is among the largest overseas Chinese populations in southeast Asia.”

“… China is the Philippines’ top trading partner, reaching $55.7 billion in 2018… China pumped 66.2 million worth of foreign investment into the Philippines in 2018.”
(Angelus, “New Vatican missionary chief could be pivotal player on China, By John Allen, December 13, 2019)

It appears that China may own the Philippines as it owns Cuba.

It appears that it may not be a coincidence that the Philippines’ government just ordered an end to the visiting forces agreement between the Philippines and the US.

Moreover,  is it possible that the powers controlling the Philippines, the Vatican, the globalist media as well as the Communist China Party might want a Chinese pope who speaks the Communist Chinese Party’s official language “Mandarin”?

The Economist states:

“The Communist Party wants all of China to speak Mandarin.”
(The Economist, “Language – China’s tyranny of characters,” July 5, 2016)

Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church as well as for the Triumph of the Kingdom of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate of Mary.

Posted by Fred Martinez at 8:26 PM Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to FacebookShare to Pinterest

Liberty and the Claims of Truth

Hadley Arkes

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?hl=en&shva=1#inbox/FMfcgxwGDNMClGdQppqfhbNgFRnDZcJC

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2020

We are coming this week on the anniversary of the death of our beloved friend Michael Novak, one of the founders of this site and many other valuable initiatives.  His voice as a writer, on theology and politics, on the arts and sports, could always break through the rancor and confusion of what is left of our public discourse.

I miss him at every turn, and I need him ever more now as an ally as I find myself at odds – even with friends among the conservative judges – on the matter of purging moral judgment from the law when it comes to judging the content of public speech and entertainments.

What can be said for my friends on the courts is that they have come to a vivid sense of the tendency, abroad in the land, to brand a conservative and religious perspective on marriage and sexuality as a species of “hate speech.” Some of them seem to be persuaded now that the surest path to protecting the speech of moral conservatives is to deny, in a stroke, the possibility of casting a moral judgment on any species of speech, as hurtful or wrongful, as rightly deserving restraint.

Call it a saving touch of “relativism.”

And so, two of my favorite justices brought things to sharper statement three years ago (in Matal v. Tam) when they drew on a line of the late Justice Brennan and declared, with a new accent, that it is nothing less than a “bedrock” of the First Amendment that “speech may not be banned on the ground that it expresses ideas that offend.”

The simple novelty here is to regard what “offends” as a matter entirely subjective.  Any hurt or damage depends entirely on the feelings of the people who hear the words, and the variety of wounded feelings may be boundless.  But what is ruled out is the recognition that there may be things done, with speech as with any other instrument of our freedom, that may indeed be offensive and wrongful in principle.

But, of course, it was long understood in the law that speech could become an instrument for inflicting unjustified, wrongful harms, along with any other part of our freedom.  Strictly speaking, “assaults” did not require bodily touching and material harms. The threatening phone call in the middle of the night constituted an assault, just as much as any bodily attack.  That call could administer a shock, as could a call that brings news of a death in the family.  And we can judge one call as justified and the other unjustified, with the same standards we bring to the judging of any other acts that inflict harms.

The radical break comes in detaching the “liberty” to speak from the moral judgment that decently constrains.  And that is the problem that Michael Novak addressed at the core.  For what he saw was that “liberty” could not be separated from moral truth.   Liberty must always be directed to an end, and so it must point to the question of whether that liberty is being directed, in any case, to ends good or bad.

For most of our history, the notion of liberty has been attended by the awareness of “license”: the misuses of freedom in pursuing wrongful or corrupted ends.  What Novak saw, at the heart of liberty, was the challenge posed by nihilism.  He recalled the infamous “mystery passage” by Justice Anthony Kennedy: that “at the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the meaning of human life.”  This, said Novak, was “pure nihilism”:

If I am free to make up my own universe, no law binds me.  Nihilism means never having to be judged, and in this it gives the illusion of total freedom and unfettered autonomy.

And as John Paul II saw, “If there is no ultimate truth to guide and direct political activity, then ideas and convictions can be easily manipulated for reasons of power.”  As moral truths are ruled out, judgment turns on acts of brute will or the flexing of power.

The shift began really in 1971, with Cohen v. California and Justice Harlan’s famous axiom, that “one man’s vulgarity is another’s lyric.” The meaning of moral words was taken to be entirely emotive, with no content that could be judged true or false.  And so the judgment on what language is legitimate in a public place, he said, is a judgment that “the Constitution leaves. . .so largely to the individual.”

Before then there was a prevailing sense that people had an obligation to restrain themselves out of a respect for others in a public place.  But after the presumption was in favor of the freedom to act out even gross displays in public.  The burden would fall to others to avert their eyes, develop tougher skin, or simply avoid public places altogether.

Except for one class of speakers:  pro-life demonstrators.   They alone could be restrained or barred from approaching other people if their very presence could be felt as a sting of reproach for women walking into a clinic for abortion.

The result has been a steady coarsening of our public discourse and entertainments, while the move to a “protective relativism” has brought no safety for conservative speakers on the campuses.  At the same time, it has removed even the moral ground for defending “liberty” as a good to be preserved.

*Image: Michael Novak by Igor Babailov, 2009 [Canizaro Library, Ave Maria University, Florida]

© 2020 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to: info@frinstitute.orgThe Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own.

• About the Author
• Latest Articles

Hadley Arkes

Hadley Arkes is the Ney Professor of Jurisprudence Emeritus at Amherst College and the Founder/Director of the James Wilson Institute on Natural Rights & the American Founding. His most recent book is Constitutional Illusions & Anchoring Truths: The Touchstone of the Natural Law. Volume II of his audio lectures from The Modern Scholar, First Principles and Natural Law is now available for download.

FEBRUARY 11, 2020

The Little Sisters Are Headed to the Supreme Court—Again

DONOVAN WILSON

https://www.crisismagazine.com/2020/the-little-sisters-are-headed-to-the-supreme-court-again

There is nothing quite so depressing as politicians jerking nuns around. The Little Sisters of the Poor are returning to the U.S. Supreme Court for a third time. They’ve already twice defended their right not to comply with the Obamacare requirement that employers provide free contraceptive coverage in their health insurance.

The Little Sisters are a Roman Catholic charitable order that cares for the elderly and poor by operating 30 nursing homes across the country. Those homes have lay staff for whom the Little Sisters provide group health insurance. Everything was fine until the Obama administration and certain state governments got it into their heads that the Sisters ought to ignore their beliefs and include contraception and abortion-inducing drugs in their insurance coverage.

Litigation about contraception under the Affordable Care Act has been going on almost since the inception of Obamacare. In 2014, the Supreme Court ruled that closely held companies—mostly family-owned businesses—are exempt from the contraceptive mandate.

At the same time, the Little Sisters were in the courts seeking protection for religious organizations. The Supreme Court issued an injunction in 2013 protecting the Little Sisters, but that didn’t stop the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals from ruling against them. The Sisters faced tens of millions of dollars in fines if they did not comply.

So, back to court they went. In 2016, the Supreme Court heard their case and unanimously overturned the lower court’s ruling. The order would not have to provide contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs in its health care plans. The Little Sisters’ religious liberty was secure.

At least it should have been.

In 2018, the Trump administration issued a new rule that contains an exemption for religious ministries. It was written specifically to support the Supreme Court’s 2016 ruling.

This did not sit well with activists. Several states—including California, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey—sued the federal government and targeted the Little Sisters in particular. Pennsylvania and New Jersey soon obtained a nationwide injunction against the rulings by sympathetic judges protecting religious objectors from the contraceptive mandate. The Third Circuit Court of Appeals upheld this injunction. Now the whole thing is headed back to the Supreme Court.

The states argue that the Little Sisters are not religious enough to qualify for an exemption. This, of course, is preposterous. The Little Sisters follow the Roman Catholic Church’s teaching regarding life and contraception. Forcing them to provide contraception, including abortifacients, would force them to abandon one of their core beliefs. Their only alternative would be to abandon their mission of helping the elderly and the poor because they could no longer have employees with insurance.

In fact, this dispute emerges from an ideological groundswell on the left that targets religious groups. The Little Sisters face a secular tsunami because they are an easy target—one that will garner headlines.

Lawmakers and attorneys general in states targeting the Little Sisters remain tone-deaf and blind to the fact that most Americans support religious freedom. On the rare occasion that they do admit as much, it’s only to twist it into an attack on people who “cling to guns and religion.”

The Little Sisters are not trying to stop the states from providing free contraception: they are asking that they not be forced to provide it themselves. Oddly enough, California and Pennsylvania already have programs to provide contraceptives to women who want them, but they still want to force nuns to provide them, too.

It’s also striking that while states push to punish religious groups that don’t want to provide contraception, they are perfectly content to let large corporations that write hefty campaign checks slide. Pepsi, Exxon, Visa and others are exempt from the current contraception mandate under Obamacare. If exemptions are appropriate for those who worship at the altar of “woke capitalism,” why not also for the Little Sisters who worship at the altar of Christ?

❧

The First Amendment is supposed to protect all people of faith, including nuns, from punishment for following their beliefs. The ability of Americans to act on their conscience, guided by their religious convictions, is an essential element of our society.

In 1966, Muhammad Ali refused his draft induction, citing his religious beliefs and opposition to the Vietnam War. He was arrested, found guilty of draft evasion, and stripped of his boxing titles. When he took a stand for his beliefs in court, he was not cheered and supported. Rather, he fought to the Supreme Court. In 1971, the Court reversed the initial decision against Ali.

In the years after that landmark decision, the nation and the world came to recognize that his struggle for religious liberty was right and just. People now embrace Ali as The Greatest and respect his position as a conscientious objector.

The Supreme Court likely will once again side with the Little Sisters. Perhaps in years and decades to come, as with Ali, Americans will honor them for their struggle.

They are applying the Gospel to the less fortunate. This effort is a calling, a vocation, and a mission embedded in their hearts and minds. The Sisters’ love for God flows from and through faith, hope and charity. They have made Christ’s dictum their guiding principle: “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”

Separation of Church and State works both ways. The Church won’t dictate what the state does. If democratically elected governments choose to provide contraceptives, so be it, at least until the next election. At the same time, the state must not infringe upon the religious practice of individuals in a free society. Let the Little Sisters practice what they preach in peace.

Photo credit: Getty Images

Tagged as contraception, Healthcare, Little Sisters of Poor, Obamacare, woke capitalism75

By Donovan Wilson

Donavan Wilson is a writer based in Washington, D.C.

• HEALTH CARE

Doctors Scared To Bring Their Kids To Hospitals After Wisconsin Baby Snatch

After this parent’s honest mistake and the hospital’s suspicion of child abuse, a lack of due process led to John Cox’s arrest and Child Protective Services taking away his child.By Holly ScheerFEBRUARY 11, 2020

https://thefederalist.com/2020/02/11/doctors-scared-to-bring-their-kids-to-hospitals-after-wisconsin-baby-snatch/?utm_source=The+Federalist+List&utm_campaign=deb3986b91-RSS_The_Federalist_Daily_Updates_w_Transom&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_cfcb868ceb-deb3986b91-83807141

Taking an injured baby to the hospital is a normal and healthy parental response, but in the case of one Wisconsin family, this led to them losing custody of their baby and the father losing his job as a doctor at a hospital. The parents’ story and that of the hospital’s child abuse team tell two very different tales, raising concerns over how children are removed from homes, how families can proceed, and why due process is so often lacking in family courts.

Dr. John Cox and his wife, Dr. Sadie Dobrozsi, have two older children and a baby they were adopting, L.G., as she is known in the records. Dobrozsi was out of town at a conference with the two other children, leaving Cox and the newborn girl home. He fell asleep, according to his reports, with her in his bed in the early hours of the morning, and accidentally partially rolled onto the baby.

Cox woke up when she cried, quickly picked her up, and was concerned she was injured from his mistake. He talked to his wife over the phone, and she suggested taking the baby to see a doctor to make sure L.G. was okay.

This is where the story becomes a nightmare. Child abuse investigators, including a nurse practitioner, at Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin, identified marks on the baby as bruises. The baby’s collarbone was fractured from where Cox said he had rolled onto her, an injury in an infant that typically heals without intervention.

The case was turned over to Child Protective Services, the baby was removed from their custody, and Cox was arrested. But was this baby abused?

Experts Testify This Wasn’t Child Abuse

According to the 15 specialists who gave statements in defense of Cox, no, she wasn’t. The extensive contusions recorded at Children’s Wisconsin weren’t bruises at all, but birthmarks, according to seven dermatologists. Dr. Yvonne Chiu, who is board-certified and specializes in pediatric dermatology, described the marks on the baby as “pigmentary lines of demarcation which are linear birthmarks, not multiple linear-shaped bruise patterns.”

When lab work was done on L.G., it revealed abnormal hematological results, multiple hematologists testified. Dr. Lynn Malec, the medical director for the Comprehensive Center for Bleeding Disorders at the Medical College of Wisconsin, described L.G.’s hematology results as “abnormal.” L.G.’s results could indicate a bleeding disorder, making bruising or skin discolorations more likely from typical handling, not abuse.

None of these results were included with the criminal complaint by the deputy district attorney when Cox was charged, nor have they been added as the state has proceeded with the case.

The defense’s motion to dismiss also includes testimony from the original doctor who examined L.G., indicating he doesn’t think this baby was abused, that the presentation of the medical testimony has been inaccurate, and that the baby should not have been removed from her family: “I have some concerns in some discrepancies in [L.G.’s] medical records between Ms. Ventura’s (APNP) findings and conclusions and other physician’s findings, including myself. I believe these discrepancies may have led to an incorrect conclusion about suspected child abuse and thereby the removal of [L.G.] from her home.” This information was also excluded from the criminal complaint against Cox.

All the testimony supporting Cox in this defense is by people with specific qualifications in their fields, something Children’s Wisconsin has discounted, both since the Cox family’s problems began and since NBC broke this story:

Kate Judson, a lawyer in Madison and executive director of the Center for Integrity in Forensic Sciences, reviewed the case at NBC News’ request and said it follows a familiar pattern that she’s observed over the years. Child abuse specialists, she said, sometimes overstate their expertise while minimizing the expertise of other subspecialists. ‘What’s striking to me is that you have these leaps in logic that are unsupported,’ Judson said. ‘So you have a nurse practitioner here saying, ‘Well, I can determine with accuracy and certainty that this bruise was intentionally inflicted.’ And then you have a dermatologist, who is unquestionably an expert in the examination of skin lesions, who’s saying, ‘Well, this isn’t even a bruise.’’

Regardless of the extensive expert testimony, the state hasn’t dropped the case against Cox nor returned the baby to her parents.

Lack of Due Process Caused Irreparable Harm

Whatever the final results of the criminal and family court decisions with the Cox family, they will never regain the months they have spent separated from their baby — early, formative months of this child’s life. They will never regain the money they’ve spent defending themselves from this case, not to mention the stress of salvaging their reputations in their community and hospital, where Cox previously worked.

Sensible people want babies and children protected from child abuse. We want children to be safe and loved, with families that treat them well. But that also means the evidence must be clear and well in favor of the state removing children from their families because those removals are traumatic for the children.

This case, with two parents who were well-known and well-regarded in the community, has been the catalyst for conversation, both within Children’s Wisconsin and across the nation. When interviewed by NBC about the situation, about the child abuse team, and about how investigations happen, “Three of the doctors recalled being pressured by child abuse pediatricians to alter medical records, removing passages where they had initially reported having little or no concerns about abuse.”

If this didn’t specifically happen in the Cox family’s case, it’s still a troubling and concerning pattern, one we should evaluate. We expect doctors to report medical facts, findings, and observations, not to build abuse cases against families.

We need families and doctors to work together as teams to help kids grow healthy and strong. Stories such as this erode trust in doctors and hospitals. Parents and their children are vulnerable, and they place an incredible amount of trust in the doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals. They trust that those professionals are clear-headed, unbiased, and there to help.

At Children’s Wisconsin, this case has caused concern for other doctors who watched how this case has unfolded:

Cox’s ordeal has also opened a rift at Children’s Wisconsin, where some treating physicians say they are so alarmed by what’s happened to him that they now hesitate to refer injured children for evaluations by child abuse pediatricians, fearing that an abuse specialist might jump to the wrong conclusion and needlessly report parents to Child Protective Services.

This has altered how doctors there may care for the children in their own families, especially with injuries and other events related to what the Cox family experienced: “Five doctors told a reporter they’re even afraid to bring their own children to their hospital after accidental injuries, fearing that a misdiagnosis or miscommunication might lead Child Protective Services to break their family apart. ‘This is a disease in our hospital,’ one physician said. ‘The way John’s case has been mishandled has opened all of our eyes to how big the problem is.’”

Due Process for Families Is Essential

Child Protective Services faces a difficult task. Far too often overworked, with limited resources and not enough time for all the cases on their schedules, too frequently seeing children hurt in terrible ways, they are in the impossible position of being vilified whether they remove children or leave them. I know good, honest, hard-working people with hearts for helping others through social services, and I know their heartbreak when situations go poorly.

Between these sides should be due process — fair, predictable treatment under the law, with all parties understanding the rules, the timelines, the entire process. Too often, it seems, family courts operate under a different set of rules, despite clear legal guidance that the Constitution and due process do indeed govern family courts. As Mike Hixenbaugh has encountered in Wisconsin, publishing coverage of these issues brings legal challenges even for reporters:Mike Hixenbaugh✔@Mike_Hixenbaugh

Authorities in Wisconsin did not want you to read this story. First a prosecutor sought a gag order after I reached out seeking comment. Then a state agency sent me a cease and desist order warning of potential criminal charges.

Proud of @NBCNews for publishing it anyway. https://twitter.com/Mike_Hixenbaugh/status/1221926956465381377 …Mike Hixenbaugh✔@Mike_HixenbaughThis was one of the most difficult stories I’ve ever worked on, and not just because it’s emotional. Please give it a read. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/er-doctor-was-charged-abusing-his-baby-15-medical-experts-n1123756 …2,6694:47 PM – Jan 27, 2020Twitter Ads info and privacy1,430 people are talking about this

There must be a road forward for families, kids, and those who dedicate their lives to protecting children. The mistrust, the doubt, and the fear of doctors and medical institutions shows our system isn’t functioning in a way that best serves anyone. It’s a shame because real lives are at stake. We must do better.Holly Scheer is a writer and editor, and a senior contributor to The Federalist. She’s fascinated by politics, culture and theology. Follow her on Twitter @HScheer1580.Photo NBC News/YouTube

NEWS

VATICAN ATTEMPTS TO EXPEL ITALIAN CITIZEN FROM ITALY AS AN ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT!

FEBRUARY 11, 2020

FROM ROME

By Br. Alexis Bugnolo

Rome, Italy: Feb. 11, 2020: The title of this report is as incredible as it sounds. For almost seven years Jorge Mario Bergoglio has done everything he can to insist that Italy accept illegal immigrants from whatever nation they come and that they should not be expelled. He has strongly criticized the efforts of Matteo Salvini, in his former capacity as Minister of the Interior, for his efforts to stem or prevent illegal immigration.

But this morning, in the Vatican Territory, it appears that the Vatican Secretary of State requested the detention and arrest of my person. I was detained at 11:40 A.M., after having had my identification papers requested on Vatican soil, almost as soon as I entered the Piazza of San Pietro around 11 A.M..

I did happen to meet one of the Vatican Reporters for the Associated Press, who wanted to interview me, but on account of being taken away for questioning — they said — my interview never happened. The AP reporter admitted being told that her sources were of the belief that something big would happen on the 7th Anniversary of Pope Benedict XVI’s Declaration.  I wanted to be at the Piazza of St. Peter to meet with other Catholics who were concerned about the treatment of Pope Benedict, the invalidity of his renunciation, and his effective imprisonment.

For this reason I was not able to interview more than one Italian, Massimo Testarotta, who had come for the event, Grex Vocum. I interviewed him and the AP reporter co-recorded the responses. He had traveled all the way from Trieste, Italy.

Here is his interview, in Italian:

Following this interview, I feared I would be arrested since my passport was refused me. I was told that I was not being arrested or detained or questioned, but in American terms that is just was happened. I was threatened with worse if I refused.

I did not expect that the Vatican would attempt to have me dragged off physically. I was told that if I did not come willingly, a police car would be called and I would be taken away in hand cuffs.  I was never told my crime. I was told they only wanted to question me.

Not being an expert in Italian, the kind gentleman whom I just had interviewed for FromRome.Info Video agreed to be my translator. As I left, the AP reporter was totally shocked. Another reporter was also present. They could not believe it. I was brought to another location, which I cannot identify without being accused of the crime of defaming the police who took me into their company!

I was eventually released at about 1:48 PM, about two hours later.

The 2 hours was a grueling cross examination and series of accusations which they wanted to charge me with.

The first attempted charge was that I was an illegal alien without a visa to enter Italian Territory. How you can be arrested in Vatican Territory for violating Italian Law is something they did not explain. Though one officer told me that when the Pope is not in the Piazza S. Pietro, the Piazza is not Vatican Territory. — I told him he badly misunderstands the borders of the Vatican City State!

The penalty they wanted to impose upon me was 3 years of exclusion from Italy. They made this accusation even though they had MY ITALIAN PASSPORT verifying that I am an Italian Citizen ex iuris sanguinis, with the right to remain in Italy perpetually!

Only after insisting that the first charge was false, did they drop it.

The next charge to bring against me was that I was a vagabond, without residence. But they could not find any law to make that a crime. You see, if you are not the right kind of poor person, Bergoglio wants you arrested!

Then they began a long disquisition with me through my translator, accusing me of being a “Frate”. I asked them what they thought that word meant and they could not give me a coherent reply. So I wrote out 2 pages to explain what a Friar is and why some could say I am but other that I am not, since the term is not defined in Canon Law, and that some Franciscans use the term, but others do not and that some Franciscan communities do not want others to use the term and some do not. They seem consternated in my lengthy and legal reply and so would not accept my written statement — which I believe totally exonerated me from the trumped up charge.

And so they proceeded to another accusation.

The third charge was that I was attempting to defraud others by presenting myself in the clothing of a Catholic Priest. They explained to me what they thought was a catholic priest and what a catholic priest wears. They were so wrong, I had to laugh. They thought a priest was anyone who took vows, and that all Franciscans are priests, and that the Franciscan habit was a sign of being a priest and that all Franciscans are official representatives of the Catholic Church! What can I say! They thought my Franciscan habit was a priest’s cassock!

I asked if any had studied Church Law. They said no. I asked if anyone could bring me a copy of the legal code they were accusing me of violating. They refused. Mr. Testarotta used his cellphone and showed me. I asked for a lawyer to advise me at least 3 times, they refused to procure one for me. I told them I did not know how to respond to their accusations without legal advice.

I looked at the article in the Penal Code which I was being accused of violating, and it said nothing about how I dressed, nor did it define its terms. So I said to them, through my translator that they were accusing me of violating what they thought is the meaning of words in the Code which the Code itself does not define. So what they are accusing me of is violating what they think the law is. Their response I do not remember. I asked how I can reply to the accusation if they do not define for me what I am being accused of. Evidently that is my problem. I think they told me to tell it to the judge.

So they charged me with impersonating an official representative of the Catholic Church. They did not say to whom I made this impersonation or when. They evidently thought that if they think I am such a representative, that I am responsible for their mistaken thoughts and judgement. — This is a whole new category of thought crime, being responsible for the thoughts of the police!

I made a short statement about my consecrated life as a Franciscan brother observing the Rule of Saint Francis. They said the Court will not contact me about the matter, because I have no address, but that in 30 days I have to present my defense. The ultimate penalty would be a fine of up to nearly 900 Euros or a thousand dollars. I told them as a son of Saint Francis I have no money and can not pay a fine. One of them ridiculed me, implying I was a liar.

Finally, they complained at the end of having wasted so much time with me, and I said I hoped they were being well paid by the Vatican Secretary of State. I am convinced the Vatican Secretary of State was involved because during the questioning which was not questioning, I saw them with a page printed out some days ago, of the website of an organization they wanted to accuse me about for some reason, and which had nothing to do with my presence in the Piazza San Pietro. It seemed about a week old, printed on a low quality inkjet printer. I was folded 4 times to stick in a pocket and hide away.

This is the sad state of affairs at the Vatican. Police harassment of journalists to prevent them interviewing anyone who might criticize the Argentine! — Does anyone think any longer that Pope Benedict XVI is not at all a prisoner?

I personally ask everyone who has faulted Pope Benedict XVI for being silent for 7 years to apologize publicly. I hope you can see now what happens to you if you even want to hear someone criticize Bergoglio on Vatican soil. I also think that what happened to me today proves:

1. That is highly probable that Pope Benedict XVI was forced to read the Declaratio 7 years ago.
2. That Pope Benedict XVI cannot be presumed a priori to have consented to anything after February 10, 2013.
3. That Pope Benedict XVI is most likely being threatened with physical violence and detained against his will.
4. That Pope Benedict XVI is surrounded with jailors and no friends.

LET US PRAY FOR POPE BENEDICT. What I suffered today is not even a drop in the Sea of Sufferings which he has had to sail on for 7 long years!

I thank God for the opportunity to taste the suffering the true Pope is enduring, and I beg all to pray for the Pope’s liberation!

Please share this post with all clergy, bishops and Cardinals you may know. I believe that my treatment on the occasion of Grex Vocum — the mere desire of Catholics to express their rights in accord with Canon 212 — shows the Vatican is totally out of control and is NOT in communion with the Catholic Church, for to reject Canon Law is to rebel from the Church, and that breaks communion in the most grave way.

__________

CREDITS: The Featured Image is a photo of Saint Peter’s Basilica taken by Br. Bugnolo this morning at the Vatican.

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Catholic Monitor

Sunday, February 09, 2020

Catholic Monitor’s Demands to the Remnant Editor Matt if he wants us to “Stand Together” with him

Could the Remnant editor Michael Matt’s “Francis is definitely pope” bias, that Francis is pope because that’s an infallible dogma of the Francis Creed, finally be starting to crack?
[Click here to read the Francis Creed: http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2020/01/are-1p5-and-where-peter-is-going-to.html?m=1]

I know from someone who knows the inner workings of Matt’s editorship of the Remnant because she has written for him that he “has not allowed phrases like ‘questionably legal'” before in his newspaper or website that appeared in the article “APOSTASY AND OLD LACE: Do We Have an Uncle Benny Brewster in the Attic?”:

– “… Nearly seven years after his resignation from the Papacy, (questionably legal, but certainly effective) the good bishop has found himself to be in fine fiddle, enough to coauthor a new book with Robert Cardinal Sarah on priestly celibacy.”
[https://remnantnewspaper.com/web/index.php/headline-news-around-the-world/item/4732-apostasy-and-old-lace-do-we-have-an-uncle-benny-brewster-in-the-attic]

In fact, Matt in his latest YouTube video “DONALD TRUMP: Vatican Public Enemy No. 1” appears to be claiming he and the other “Francis is definitely pope” traditionalists may be willing to call a ceasefire and stop their attacks, misrepresentations and blacklisting of the BiP[Benedict is Pope] movement and the Bishop Rene Gracida movement. He said:

“I may have it wrong. You may have it wrong. But what is important, right now, is that we do not dogmatize opinion on some of this… Don’t panic. Stay close. Keep praying. Stay together. We can do that. We can all stand together. Do our part without anathematizing. Let’s give it a try.”
(“DONALD TRUMP: Vatican Public Enemy No. 1”: https://youtu.be/WBUHhQrct_M, 24:22-24:31 and 26:51-27:02])

Sadly, I am tempted to think Matt is using the “Good cop/bad cop” routine:

“The ‘bad cop’ takes an aggressive, negative stance towards the subject, making blatant accusations, derogatory comments, threats, and in general creating antipathy between the subject and themself. This sets the stage for the “good cop” to act sympathetically, appearing supportive and understanding, and in general showing sympathy for the subject. The good cop will also defend the subject from the bad cop. The subject may feel they can cooperate with the good cop either out of trust or out of fear of the bad cop. They may then seek protection by and trust the good cop and provide the information the interrogators are seeking.^[3] “

“This technique also has its disadvantages in that it can be easily identified and the ‘bad cop’ may alienate the subject.^[4]” [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_cop/bad_cop]

I want to trust that Mr. Matt is being sincere, but as “President Ronald Reagan on several occasions in the context of nuclear disarmament discussions with the Soviet Union” said “trust, but verify.”
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trust,_but_verify]

Unfortunately, too many of Matt’s traditionalist collaborators and even he by playing the bad cop too many times have lost our trust with such things as misrepresenting, attacking and blacklisting members of the BiP movement and the Bishop Gracida movement.

Matt’s long time collaborator, for example, Chris Ferrara used misrepresentation:

“Furthermore, the only time I have ever spoken face-to-face with Ann Barnhardt, at least that I can remember, was at Lake Garda, and the entire conversation involved my objection to her claim that the “data set” shows Bergoglio is not the Pope.  We have no competence to assemble “data sets” and declare that the Chair of Peter is vacant.”
[http://stumblingblock.org/?p=15295]

He said that the Barnhardt position was “to declare the Chair of Peter is vacant.” The BIP position is the exact opposite of “declar[ing] that the Chair of Peter is vacant.”

Next, Matt has at no time condemned or at least distanced himself from the despicable and loathsome Alinsky tactics of One Peter Five publisher Steve Skojec. Canon law expert Br. Alexis Bugnolo explains the tactic and gives an example of which there are numerous (which, also, include attacks on Bishop Gracida):

“The recent attacks on Ann Barnhardt, chief of all, seem to be employing the Rules for Radicals. In Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, we have, for example, Rule 13, “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”  This means, in regard to persons, to dissuade the public from consideration of the truths professed by an individual by attacking that individual on personal issues.”

“Then there is Rule 5, “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon,” which has been honed into a fine art by Steve Skojec, editor and publisher of OnePeterFive.com — apparently a commercial site, because of its *.com, but in reality organized in US Law as a non-profit, where it appears from its tax filings 100% of funds raised, after expenses, go to Skojec or family members.*”
“Here is an example of that, in regard to Ann Barnhardt.”
Couldn’t care less. If you want the queen of Catholic online cancer, she’s it.

And Ferrara is infinitely more qualified on every topic she forgets 1 Tim 2:12 to bloviate about.
— Steve Skojec (@SteveSkojec) February 6,  [https://fromrome.info/2020/02/09/alinskis-rules-for-radicals-used-against-the-church/]Finally, the editor of the Remnant has not allowed free debate of the issues on his publication or website with real members of the BiP movement and the Bishop Gracida movement. He in his YouTube video mentioned as an example of free debate at the Remnant an article of Robert Siscoe which is a joke. Siscoe is a close collaborator of the disgraceful Skojec who in my opinion, also, misrepresents the issues. (See: Catholic Monitor, “Why are Skojec & Siscoe Afraid of a Conclave Investigation by Cardinals?”) [http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2019/03/why-are-siscoe-and-skojec-apparently-so.html?m=1]

If you, Mr. Matt, are sincere and want us to “all stand together” then “stop dogmatiz[ing] opinion” and stop “anathematizing” and stop attacking, misrepresenting and blacklisting the BiP movement and the Bishop Gracida movement.

Here are the Catholic Monitor’s demands if you sincerely want me and my readers to “stand together” with you:

Demand number 1:

Condemned or at least distanced yourself in writing from the loathsome Alinsky tactics of One Peter Five publisher Skojec.

Demand number 2:

Have your writer Mr. Ferrara issue a apology and retraction to Miss Barnhardt for mispresenting her position. 

Demand number 3:

Allow Bishop Gracida and canon law expert Br. Bugnolo to publish articles in the Remnant and then get which ever expert you want and have an honest debate in your newspaper between them and your experts.

Lastly, Mr. Matt, if you really think we who follow Bishop Gracida, Br. Bugnolo as well as Miss Barnhardt are wrong and headed to hell for being in schism from Francis then out of simple charity for our souls you should honestly counter our dissertations and arguments.

If you really believe we are wrong and headed to hell and refuse to seriously give us real arguments then you apparently have lost the supernatural virtue of charity.

If you really believe what you are saying then for charity’s sake you should attempt to save us from hell for being in schism from Francis:

But, all we hear are straw man arguments that don’t counter our stated dissertations, name calling propaganda, blacklisting, silence or the noise of you running away as fast as you can from serious reasoned back and forth argumentation.

Just to give fair warning:

We are not going away.

We are growing.

Soon we will be to be too big to ignore.

As even Church Militant’s Michael Voris reported we are becoming the majority of faithful Catholics in Rome. The same thing is happening in the United States and if you can’t stop us now we will probably grow to be the majority of faithful Catholics in America.

Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church as well as for the Triumph of the Kingdom of the Sacred Heart of the Jesus and the Immaculate of Mary.Posted by Fred Martinez at 5:17 PM Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to FacebookShare to Pinterest

5 comments:

Debbie said…

Excellent idea Fred! How about it Mr. Matt? I remember “Argument of the Month”. This should be right up your alley. Argument of the 21st Century perhaps? 7:21 PM

Fred Martinez said…

Debbie,

Thank you. Please join me in praying for Mr. Matt. My friend who has written for him says he is a sincere and honest man.7:32 PM

Debbie said…

Will do. And I totally believe he’s a good guy. His sincerity is evident in his videos. 8:22 PM

Alexis Bugnolo said…

I praying for Matt that he starts out along the path he has outlined. I think it is a sane approach and I thank him for admitting that Benedict XVI is the pope. I hope he understands that when those in the PPBXVI movement talk about damnation for not recognizing the true pope, we are merely referring to Pope Boniface VIII’s bull, Unam Sanctam, which was the foundation of every Trad apostolate, at least before Feb. 11, 2013…12:29 AM

Alexis Bugnolo said…

Typo alerts….. I am praying ….. for admitting that Benedict may be12:33 AM

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SUNDAY REPORTThe Vatican’s Nest of Globalist Ninnies They stand against America and for the UN. 

byGEORGE NEUMAYRFebruary 9, 2020, 12:05 AM Jeffrey Sachs speaking at the Vatican last week. Bishop Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo is to his right. (YouTube screenshot) 🔊 Listen to this article

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Nesting at the Vatican these days is an astonishing collection of leftists, all of whom recite from the same left-wing catechism as Pope Francis. The Vatican has become the favorite European salon of the George Soros crowd. To say that the Vatican is under enemy occupation sounds hyperbolic but it is not. A steady stream of pro-abortion pols and intellectuals pass through the Vatican every week — from Bernie Sanders to Paul Ehrlich to Jerry Brown to Bill de Blasio to Jeffrey Sachs.

This last week Sachs was at the Vatican pontificating about the evil of Donald Trump’s America while sitting next to Bishop Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo, chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. Sorondo cheered Sachs on as he ripped into America as a force of “thuggery” in the world. (Sorondo has a low opinion of America but an exceedingly high one of communist China, which he considers “the best implementer of Catholic social doctrine” in the world today.)

Sachs, no doubt speaking for many Vatican officials, said that Donald Trump’s reelection would be “absolutely dangerous” for the world. Sachs is a supporter of Bernie Sanders, who was, notably, the only presidential candidate invited to the Vatican in 2016.

Vatican officials have still not recovered from Donald Trump’s victory. The globalist ninnies who perch at the Vatican, such as Sachs, see Trump, with his emphasis on sovereignty, as the greatest threat to their dream of world government — a dream they conceal in the rhetoric of “multilateralism” and “international institutions.”

Pope Francis has peddled a great deal of nonsense along those lines. Last September he instructed mankind to bow before the UN:

When we acknowledge international organizations and we recognize their capacity to give judgment, on a global scale — for example the international tribunal in The Hague, or the United Nations. If we consider ourselves humanity, when they make statements, our duty is to obey.… We must obey international institutions. That is why the United Nations were created.

Never mind that the United Nations is a fiercely anti-Catholic institution that seeks to spread abortion rights everywhere. Under the left-wing politics of Pope Francis, the Church is becoming an annex of the United Nations. The hideous Amazon Synod captured the degree to which that is now the case. The Vatican was crawling with UN officials, eager to capitalize on the Church’s call for international institutions to control the Amazon.

By hosting the anti-American diatribes of Sachs, Pope Francis and his aides reveal that they are desperately rooting for Trump to lose. Just look at Sorondo clapping and laughing while Sachs denigrated Trump and called America the greatest impediment to “multilateralism.” Bernie Sanders is the Vatican’s man.

San Diego’s Robert McElroy, who is the prototypical Pope Francis bishop, gave a speech last Thursday designed to rationalize votes for pro-abortion Democrats like Sanders. The speech was full of whoppers and absurd claims. He said his remarks rested on the Gospel, but they sounded more like a transcript from the Rachel Maddow show.

He asserted, on his own authority, that Catholic social teaching includes support for “reversal of the climate change that threatens the future of humanity and particularly devastates the poor and the marginalized”; support for “policies that safeguard the rights of immigrants and refugees in a moment of great intolerance”; support for “systematic efforts to fight poverty and egregious inequalities of wealth”; support “movement toward universal nuclear disarmament”; and opposition to “racism in every form, both through cultural transformation and legal structures.”

He threw in some Catholic-sounding positions too, but emphasized that they shouldn’t predominate in the voter’s calculations. After all, he opined outrageously, more people will die from climate change than the abortionist’s scalpel: “The death toll from abortion is more immediate, but the long-term death toll from unchecked climate change is larger and threatens the very future of humanity.” He also said that “it is a far greater moral evil for our country to abandon the Paris Climate Accord than to provide contraceptives in federal health centers.”

McElroy is taking Cardinal Joseph Bernardin’s infamous voting calculus — called the Seamless Garment — to a ludicrous new level. It can only have the effect of making it even easier for pro-abortion Catholic Democrats to operate. The sophistical character of his remarks is staggering. To compare the undeniable evil of abortion with the supposed evil of opposing specific initiatives of climate change activism is perverse.

“Both abortion and the environment are core life issues in Catholic teaching,” says McElroy. No, they are not. The Church has authority to declare abortion evil; it possesses no authority to declare opposition to the Paris Climate Accord evil. The latter is a purely prudential matter on which Catholics are free to disagree. How to respond to this or that environmental problem has none of the moral certainty of opposing abortion.

McElroy sounds less like a Catholic bishop than a spokesman for the Sierra Club. His appalling comments explain why the likes of Jeffrey Sachs and Naomi Klein, the Canadian socialist, find such a welcome audience at the Vatican these days. It has become feverishly focused on all things temporal, preoccupied not with the salvation of souls but with a misguided desire to “save the planet.”

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CANON LAW, EDITORIALS, FAITH

CHERRY-PICKING CANON LAW IS A MORTAL SIN

FEBRUARY 10, 2020FROM ROME EDITOR1 COMMENT

By Br. Alexis Bugnolo

One day, while I lingered at the Convent of Saint Francis of Assisi, at Bagnoregio, in the spring of 2016, one of the Franciscan Fathers invited me to come with him to a Cherry orchard owned by a benefactor of the Convent. The owner said we could pick all the cherries we wanted. And the Conventual Father just loved cherries. I had never picked cherries and wanted to do some work to repay the Friars for their hospitality to me, so I eagerly went along.

In a Cherry Orchard

Cherries, in the province of Viterbo, Italy, grow in masses on the branches of trees which are nearly 20 feet high. So many cherries sprout from each branch that without supports the branches usually break.  But unlike many fruits, picking cherries is difficult, because they are so small and each one ripens at its own pace. So each cherry has to be picked on the basis of a decision to pick it or not. And this has to be accurate, because an unripe cherry can cause great gastric distress after you eat it.

We picked so many cherries, the old Friar was nearly taken to heaven. He was so happy, it reminded him of his youth. Alas, after letting them age a day in the refrigerator, they were found to be not very sweet and too watery. I found them fine and ended up eating too many of them. But Italians are very particular about food quality, and the old priest ate no more than a handful, which was a great disappointment to him.

The Expression, to Cherry-pick…

And thus the colloquial expression, in English, to cherry-pick.  To cherry-pick means to chose what you want and leave the rest. The expression is used to show the mendacity or malignancy in choosing what you want from something which is intended to be taken as a whole.

For example, Protestants cherry-pick scripture to propose to their congregations a Christianity without Bishops, priests and Sacraments. This is because they decide to believe and observe and thus recognize only certain passages from Scripture, not all of them.

Cherry-picking Scripture is a mortal sin, because it presupposes that you are a rebel against the obligation of faith to believe in all of Sacred Scripture as inerrant and equally inspired by God.

Canon Law

Imagine a Church where you only had to observe certain Canon Laws and not others. I can imagine that if I went to any medium or high security prison in the world, and proposed a society where you could chose which laws to keep and which you did not have to keep, that my proposal would win the wild cheers of all the inmates, for obvious reasons.

To cherry-pick a code of law is obviously wrong. But perhaps not so obviously more immoral and evil than breaking the law. Because the one who chooses to break a law does not necessary decide or judge that the law should not be observed, only that what he wants at that moment is more important. But someone who cherry-picks a Code of Law is setting himself up as an authority over the authority of the law itself and rejects in principle that the entire Code and the authority which issued it is his superior, which he must obey.

To cherry-pick Canon Law therefore is a very serious mortal sin of rebellion against the Pope and against Jesus Christ, from Whom the papal munus comes. It is thus diabolic, without any exaggeration.

True or False Pope?

I am continually amazed how many commentators stop by and say, What is wrong with obeying a false pope? Is not obedience what matters? People do not obey Francis because of Francis, but out of obedience to the papacy, no?

If we think we can cherry-pick Canon Law, then it does not matter, because then the Catholic Religion is up for the grab of everyone, everyone can make it into what he wants, and we have a New Gnosticism, where everyone has his own inner guiding secret principles for salvation: while the external visible Church is merely the living space for the wantonness of each. Pope, Antipope, Jesus or the Antichrist, it would all be equally good.

This is why it is absolutely essential to the salvation of each of us and of all of us to get Canon 332 §2 right. Whether you are the Pope or a Cardinal, or a Bishop or a priest, or just a layman, it makes a difference. We cannot pick and chose canons, we have to obey all the Canons of the Church.

What does it matter that Canon Law says we must obey the pope, if we refuse to obey the pope by rejecting Canon 332 § 2, and listen to the Cardinals instead who want to have an authority which Canon Law does not give them, to demand universal acceptance of their unfounded uncanonical opinion?  Is that obedience to the Pope? Does Unam Sanctam no longer matter to Trad Inc.? and if we do not have to submit to Canon Law, why do we have to submit to Pope Francis? — Will someone in Trad inc explain that to me?

And where on earth or in Hell comes the idea that the Holy Spirit does not care about our decisions in this matter, or that He won’t back up the Cardinals and Bishops to do the right thing, if we ask them to in Synod or Council?

This is the spirit which motivated me to write my recent letter to Giovanni Cardinal Battista Re, whom Bergoglio announced as his new Dean of the College of Cardinals. I showed 8 sound canonical reasons why the Declaration of Pope Benedict, which he made 7 years ago, tomorrow, at 11:30 AM Rome time, did not separate him from the Papal Munus, and that therefore Canon Law — which judges everyone and everything — says he is still the pope.

It’s been 7 years, and still those who say Benedict is not the pope anymore do NOT have a canonical argument. They can cite no canon as it reads, and at most grab for a canon and try to make it say the opposite of what it says, as those whom Diane Montanga interviewed last year tried to do.  I am still waiting for Life Site to print a retraction for their lies and misrepresentations. I am still waiting for Trad Inc to denounce Life Site for an article of propaganda and misinformation. I am still waiting for 750 Cardinals and Bishops and priests and 500 students of theology and canon law to get back to me with JUST ONE sound canonical argument that demonstrates Benedict is no longer the pope.

Still waiting…

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CREDITS:  The Featured Image is a collage of images created by Google Image search, under the rubric of “Canon Law”, used here according to a fair use standard for editorial commentary.

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