IHS
Ave Maria!
Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost—6 September AD 2015
Ordinary of the Mass
Mass Text - Latin
Mass Text - EnglishPope Francis has said some strange things during his pontificate. It is hard for many to know when he speaks authoritatively for the Church. I am a little scared about what he will say to the joint session of Congress and to the U.N. later this month, but, not actually knowing what he will say, I wrote the speech I think he should give:
Distinguished Senators and Representatives, members of the Administration, Justices of the Supreme Court, and worthy citizens of the American Republic: Thank you for inviting me to address you on this occasion.
As a Catholic, I have a strong sense of solidarity with the people of the United States, for your first founding document, the Declaration of Independence, was informed by principles written down by my fellow Jesuit, the Cardinal Saint Robert Bellarmine. I mean, of course, the principles that the rights of men and women to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” come from God, and are “unalienable.” That there are “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.” And, of course, that “all men are created equal.”[1] My saintly predecessor, Leo XIII would have added a right to property to the three mentioned by Thomas Jefferson, but Jefferson quite tactfully did not want to glorify the concept of people owning people, which existed during that formative period.
I would congratulate you on the free market system that made America great, and did so much to advance the physical and spiritual wellbeing of people around the world—I say “physical and spiritual” because it is hard to find spiritual peace if one and one’s children are without food, clothing, shelter, and medicines. American enterprise has contributed immeasurably to the availability of all of these, all over the world. Today, even the poor enjoy things that did not even exist in the time of President Jefferson.
The Catholic Church condemns socialism in all of its forms.[2] I am duty bound to point out that the more successful periods in you history are also the least socialistic periods in your history. All of the Republic’s wars and economic downturns are linked to excessive government influence in the economy and the monetary system. Without your Central Bank, the Federal Reserve, your Great Depression would have lasted a year or two, maybe three, instead of running the fifteen years from 1930 until 1945. And no, Mr. Roosevelt’s war did not end the depression—that took the restoration of free enterprise, and its ability to rebuild these States as well as the war torn nations overseas.
Consider the usury your citizens will have to pay on the admitted 18+Trillion dollar debt, and some number of unfunded liabilities in the hundred or more Trillion dollar range. Does anyone in this assembly actually understand what a Trillion is in concrete terms?
Consider, also, the wars that were fought, the people that died, and the homes destroyed, because “money printed out of thin air” gave you the ability to fight them without raising taxes—much to the delight of lobbyists and arms makers who are happy to finance political campaigns with this same “funny money.” Think about the Americans who will die due to “blowback.”
I must also call your attention to the poor stewardship of the environment that socialism brings with it. Consider the destruction of the Aral Sea by the Soviets, or go to Peking and just try to take a deep breath. For that matter, the damage done by your own Tennessee Valley Authority, or the recent bright yellow pollution of the Animas River by your EPA. When all the people own something, nobody owns it, and nobody takes care of it. (You can smell the reality of this at the 59th Street Subway station in New York, as you cross from IRT to IND.)
The world is filled with people who would like to make use of government to control and extort the common people. Consider the “global warming” scam—it was “global cooling” just a few decades ago! Astute bankers know that there are fortunes to be made in selling “carbon credits.” Dictators are not above driving the poor off their lands in order to plant trees which will earn them those “carbon credits”—the poor are left homeless, and even dead![3] The brokers of death at the U.N. are happy to see millions or billions die for want of food and the energy to produce it—they would disagree with Mr. Jefferson about the right to life—if human beings are getting a greater share of the planet than the snail darters, the spotted owls, and the whitehaired goldenrod, then “there are just too many people on the planet.” Communism is not dead, and there are Marxists who hope to bring about the revolution of the proletariat in the wake of massive deprivation.
I just mentioned the U.N., the United Nations. My delusional post‑conciliar predecessors have claimed that the U.N. is “the last great hope of mankind,” and that we need an “armed world authority,” and an international organization “with teeth.” They were completely wrong! The U.N. has been the promoter of genocidal wars in Asia and Africa, has procured contraception and abortion in many poor countries, and is useless in dealing with any of the political difficulties of our time. Big government is an evil in itself, and world government will have to be worse. Please, do not be a party to it!
Finally, before I take leave of this august body, I would like to share with you an observation about something that has plagued both the Catholic Church and these United States for roughly a century. Our mutual problem has a technical name, but let me refer to it simply as the “notion that truth is flexible”—that reality can be changed by talking about it—that reality can be modified by merely saying it has been changed, or simply wanting it to be different.
By way of example, an American male athlete recently announced that he had become a woman. He had undergone some superficial surgery, but yet, every cell in his body retains an XY pair of chromosomes. The substantial form of his existence as a person—his soul—remains unchanged (indeed it is unchangeable by physical means). Such a man deserves our compassion but not our confirmation.
The Church regularly faces this same fallacy, as people seem to think that words will change the truths of the moral law. The Church is expected to change the “Laws of Nature and Nature’s God”! Such folks seem to think that “Nature’s God” should change His mind based on public discourse!
The American Republic has not been immune frmom the attempt to undermine reality. The decision against Dred Scott and his wife and daughters conjured up a responsibility for government to take away the right of liberty claimed for all men in the Declaration. It further claimed, Mr. Obama, that no one of African descent could ever be a U.S. citizen.[4]
Korematsu did not strip Japanese, Italian and German Americans of their citizenship, but said that they too could be deprived of liberty for no “crime” other than their ethnicity.[5]
Peace is not kept by bombing entire populations into oblivion—even if the supposed “peace keepers” are wearing blue helmets. Not even if the blue helmeted crowd proclaims an “International Day of Happiness.”[6] Nor, on the other hand is peace kept by arming those who have been the enemies of Western Civilization for fourteen centuries.[7] Even if they seem to be moderate enemies!
The Declaration proclaims a human right to life. Modern science, to which Americans have contributed enormously, demonstrates that human life begins at conception.[8] Yet in Roe vs. Wade the Court arrogated the “authority” to put American children routinely to death for the “crime” of not being wanted. And, Americans are increasingly required to pay the executioners. (Even as they profit by selling tiny body parts.) Lest we forget, the Court also arrogated the “authority” to tell the States that they must change their laws to conform—notwithstanding the fact that the federal government derives its powers from the States and people.[9]
Your Constitution mandates a federal defense from invasion. Your laws have prescribed strong border security for decades, yet people with multiple felony convictions flit back and forth, free to rob, rape, and murder your citizens.[10] Those who come here legally see their opportunities for employment taken by those who are not here legally—and municipal serves are overwhelmed.
At creation, God Himself made man and woman as a complimentary pair. Virtually every aspect of their complimentarity is directed to the procreation and nurture of children. Yet this obvious example of the “Laws of Nature and Nature’s God” has been defied by another attack on reality in the Court’s Obergefell decision.[11]
Reality has become the great casualty of the modern world. “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your health-plan you can keep your health-plan….” And socialized medicine will make them $2,500 less expensive each year! (Right?!)
The thirteenth and fourteenth amendments fixed Dredd Scott, but the others remain, But I am confidant of the ability of the American Republic and its citizens to put all of these distortions right. May God bless you, your citizens, and your great Republic.
+ May the blessing of Almighty God,
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost
descend upon you and remain forever. Amen.Oh! And, do you think one of you could call Ban Ki-Moon, over at the UN, and tell him that I won’t have time to waste with them tomorrow? Thank you, and God bless!
NOTES:
[1] U.S. Declaration of Independence http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html
[2] Syllabus of Pope Pius IX section IV http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Pius09/p9syll.htm ; Pius IX, Quadragesimo anno, #120 http://w2.vatican.va/content/pius-xi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_19310515_quadragesimo-anno.html
[3] http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/africa/item/8353-eu-world-bank-brutalize-africans-for-carbon-credits
[7] https://suyts.wordpress.com/2014/09/09/so-were-going-to-arm-moderate-islamic-revolutionaries-to-combat-isis/
[9] US Constitution, Amendment X http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/bill_of_rights_transcript.html
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