Croatian Catholics Defeat the Enemies of Natural Marriage

Vice Vincent Batarelo of Croatia

Not yet published on their website, but Steven Mosher of Population Research Institute relates a very powerful account of how Catholic activists in Crotia successfully led a national campaign to defend natural marriage. I'm not so sure that such an approach would work here in Canada but the strategy used should be studied well and any appropriate techniques employed. We need every advantage possible in fighting the culture of death. I hope something in this account will inspire others to successful action.

UPDATE: link now available on PRI's website.
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One of the best talks at our Australia conference was given by Vice Vincent Batarelo (pronounced Vee-che), who led the fight in Croatia to defend natural marriage.

Dr. Batarelo was also a natural to invite to our conference, since he was born in Sydney to Croatian immigrants and grew up Down Under. After he completed a BA and MA at Macquarie University, however, he decided to return to the country of his ancestors, which had just won its freedom from Serbian domination in communist Yugoslavia. He earned a Ph.D. there and went to work as the director of the Family and Life Office of the Archdiocese of Zagreb.

The sexual libertines were on the march, having convinced a sympathetic left-wing government to start moving towards the legalization of homosexual unions. They had the support of the major media, and even many of the larger Croatian businesses.

But Dr. Batarelo decided they would not win. He said, “This is not going to happen in my country, which has a Catholic culture and which throughout history has been the eastern frontier of Christianity.” He could draw upon the fact that 90 percent of Croatia’s population of 4.2 million is Catholic, of whom some 30 percent attend Mass weekly. Indeed, more than half are in Mass at least once a month, one of the highest percentages in any European country.

He knew it would be a David vs. Goliath struggle. After consulting with other pro-life, pro-family leaders in Croatia, such as Marijo Zivkovic, he decided that it would be better to take the fight to the liberal-left opposition in a popular referendum. This had a greater likelihood of succeeding than trying to defeat the homosexual juggernaut in the legislature, where gay activists, supported by the government and the media, could threaten and suborn elected representatives.

When they first announced that they were gathering signatures for a referendum, the reaction of the Left was simply to dismiss the effort to preserve traditional marriage. “You are from the Middle Ages,” they said. “You’re so backward. You will never succeed.”

The law required that the supporters of the marriage referendum gather 145,000 signatures in a mere 15 days. The media kept reporting, falsely, that they were far from their goal. In fact, with the support of 6,000 volunteers they gathered more signatures than were required. A referendum was automatically triggered.

“We knew that, in order to win the referendum, we needed to think strategically and act boldly,” remarked Dr. Batarelo. “We were in a chess match and we needed to think many moves ahead.”
The first thing that Dr. Batarelo and the other organizers did was to meet with the Catholic bishops. They wanted to asked for their support—they did, and they got it—but they also wanted the bishops to stay in the background. They didn’t want to give the opposition the advantage of dismissing their concerns as religious. In religious settings they used arguments based on Catholic doctrine as well as natural law arguments, but in public they relied solely on the latter.

“In the public setting we used only natural law arguments,” Dr. Batarelo recalled. “We reminded people that marriage has been around for 5,000 years, and that it is found in every culture, in every place and in every time.”

They said that the battle over the definition of marriage had nothing to do with homosexuals per se, but had to do with defeating radical leftist ideology. This approach worked very well in Croatia, where people remember the bad old days of Communism. It also reminded people that the liberal-Left government was supporting a redefinition of marriage.

They also were very careful to adopt a positive tone in their public pronouncements, as well as in private conversations with friends and neighbors. “We didn’t want to portray homosexuals as the enemy,” said the good doctor. “We called them our friends on the Left. But we did want to make clear the advantages to society and children of protecting natural marriage.”

They were relentlessly positive, crafting their arguments for natural marriage based on the natural law, arguing the positive benefits of marriage between a man and a woman. They actively avoided talking about the negative consequences for society and children of legally recognizing homosexual liaisons. Natural Marriage = a Woman and a Man, their flyers read. Everything else is something else.

They also were able to reduce the media bias in favor of homosexual unions by carrying out a study of the media broadcasts, which showed that there was a bias against natural marriage. After the study came out, the major media were somewhat fairer in their reporting.

Finally, they were able to neutralize the media bias in another way as well, by turning to the social media. “If you don’t have the mass media on your side,” says Dr. Batarelo, “then use the social media.” By Twittering, Tweeting, Facbooking, and YouTubeing, they were able to create a media presence in the social media that won over large numbers of people to their cause.

At the end of the day, the referendum succeeded. A majority of those who voted—voting is not compulsory in Croatia—voted in favor of natural marriage.

The next big challenge, according to Dr. Batarelo, will come over the Life issue. Abortion is still legal in Croatia, having been introduced in the Communist era. But with the organization they have built in defending natural marriage, says the good doctor, “We will succeed in protecting Life from conception.”

The marriage victory in Croatia is a model for such grassroots movements in other countries. It proves that the homosexual lobby can be defeated by a well-planned, well-organized campaign.

More Fallout In Canada From Evils Of Contraception

Image credit http://theoatmeal.com/ with slight modification

Published today to SignOfContradiction.Blogspot.ca

We really are going to lose Canada if the Catholic Bishops continue to dither about Humanae Vitae and the Winnipeg Statement. And when I say "lose Canada" I really mean "lose the hard won blessings of God on our society." It pains me to think of what suffering and evil my children and grandchildren will have to endure in such a society. 

I know, I know, I sound like a broken record. Does every social evil in Canada have to lead back to the widespread use of contraception? Of course not, but that doesn’t mean we stop our critical examination of cause and effect in any particular area of  inquiry.

Look, after digesting the latest outrageous attacks on Christians in Canada—leaving aside the assault by Justin Trudeau—ask yourself if we are not entering into a new era of Christian persecution in Canada. A chill in the air seems all too real since the controversies over Trinity Western University and most recently over the Nanaimo city council.

Go here for a video intro by Ezra Levant on the Trinity Western battle and here for the scoop on Nanaimo. I support Ezra’s efforts entirely as he covers both these controversies on a new website dedicated to anti-Christian bigotry. My guess is that as Canada moves “forward” Ezra will need to seriously ramp up his activities in this regard.

For a more expansive look at what’s happening with Trinity Western, read a fine analysis which was posted just yesterday. The title of the posting is foreboding: If you don't support same-sex marriage, don't look for a legal career in Canada.

In our own local setting, where our metropolitan newspaper can’t find time for a word or letter about mass murderer Kermit Gosnell, the editorial team seems possessed of an urgent need to make room for condemnations of Trinity Western. Well, at least they gave Trinity Western a chance to say a few brief words of defense. Fair and balanced, right? And they wonder why readers are losing interest in traditional media (their newspaper ) and instead getting their news from unreliable online sources!! Apparently, they say, “the freak show is winning.”

Like I've been saying, what Bishops do and what they don’t do can move mountains but always their decisions filter down to the most ordinary facets of life.

Be Loud And Clear Concerning Evil

Published today to SignOfContradiction.Blogspot.ca

“Why is so called gay marriage sweeping across America? Because the only force on earth that might have stopped it, the Catholic Church, has not attacked the root evil, has not been clear, has not been loud. The coddling of active homosexuality within the Church has crippled Church leaders’ ability to respond."

Which Came First: Cohabitation Or Contraception?

As you probably know, a debate in the Catholic Church over divorce and remarriage is heating up.

The recent Vatican questionnaire really brought the full extent of the rebellion in focus. All according to plan, I feel sure.

What sparked the title of this blog posting was this quote:  

The responses to the questions showed that cohabitation before marriage and contraception are almost universally accepted. As they are not considered “sinful”, they are therefore not usually considered something to be confessed.

It came from a story in last week’s The Tablet about the results of the Vatican questionnaire from England and Wales.

I have recently noticed that Catholic Priests and Bishops seem to be placing more and more focus on the phenomenon of cohabitation than ever before. Have you noticed too? I think it’s a convenient cover for them since they can now point to cohabitation as one of our greatest challenges rather than ever have to bring up contraception. Of course, nobody ever cohabitates without fornication (or adultery). And nobody fornicates without some kind of contraception.

The Bishops have doomed the West to a moral and demographic collapse due to their failure to uphold Catholic teaching on artificial contraception. They avoid the subject like a plague. Their chickens are coming home to roost in a big way in the USA with the HSS mandate and same sex “marriage” tsunami.

But let’s not be confused about the real culprit here and which came first.

US Catholic Bishops And Their Hypocrisy Over The HHS Mandate

I've made reference to this sham in an earlier posting.

Michael Voris says so much in this video. He's so right! And I'm not aware of anyone else, anywhere, bringing this hypocrisy to light (except possibly Judie Brown of ALL). The rest of the mainstream Catholic media don't dare to say such things, presumably for fear of losing the support of the Catholic hierarchy.

In the meanwhile, the crisis deepens and the Faith withers.

Angry Catholic Michael Voris Meets Up With Very Offensive Judie Brown

Excerpts pasted together from last week’s Mic’d Up at ChurchMilitant.TV.

Am I suggesting that Michael Voris is an angry loudmouth? Not at all. I believe God Himself is angry about the very same things. I also believe God will have His day mouthing off (and more!) to the guilty parties. While I don't think Voris is right in everything he says or does with ChurchMilitant.TV, he's on solid ground on the subject matter covered by this video.

What about Judie Brown? Do I consider her to be a very offensive lady? Not to me, not in the least. She is a truth teller. I've said it before. However, I’m sure that those she exposes and criticizes find her offensive in the extreme.

And those of us in Canada needn’t think that none of this applies to us or to our Bishops and Priests. In fact, I believe we are worse off. A recent incident provides a glimpse into the neglect of one Canadian Bishop to properly form the consciences of the faithful. No, I'm not picking on a Bishop for doing a good thing like promoting Confession. I'm talking about a pattern that has been perverting or undermining Catholic spirituality for more than 40 years.

Making Sense of The Same Sex Marriage Assault: 2nd Round, USA

I characterize the "same sex marriage" assault in the USA as the 2^nd round because here in Canada we had the 1^st round in 2005. The fight in the US still is a hot issue, especially with last week’s rulings from the Supreme Court regarding DOMA and Prop. 8. I’ve done my share of tweeting as I’ve watched the lead up to the SCOTUS verdict and the fallout since. Just check my Twitterfeed on this blogpage (column to right) for a fuller education on the matter. Many of my tweets pointed readers to an especially relevant article I wrote some time ago.

The fact is though that exceedingly few news sources, editorials or commentaries really nail the subject solidly with a bigger view in mind. And God knows we need the bigger view to make sense of what’s happening around us in the “culture wars” which is really just a metaphor for the ongoing war in our nation between tradition and progressivism (modernism). Otherwise how shall we be able to identify and resist the evil bearing down upon us?

Which brings me to Judie Brown’s commentary, appearing below. It’s the only one like it in ALL of America (no pun intended) in a number of ways. Firstly, it’s very brief and to the point. Secondly, it is not filled with politically correct, acculturated language. Finally, it weaves very neatly the various facets of the war against tradition, e.g. marriage, contraception, abortion, divorce, etc. into an understandable whole, much like the prophetic encyclical Humanae Vitae did.

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Gay Marriage And Contraception

June 29, 2013

By Judie Brown

As our country slides deeper into a moral abyss, many stand by either gaping at these changes or passively watching them happen. Neither of these things is effective in teaching morality or the truths of the Catholic Church. To effect change, we must first understand why these things are happening. Today's commentary addresses the tumult and the immorality our society is experiencing, and we must listen well. The future of marriage, of family, and of our society depends upon us.

In view of the June 26 Supreme Court decisions on "gay" marriage, it is time for serious Catholics to examine how this perverted situation came to pass. Let's start with the use of the word "gay" and American Life League's internal style guide. At ALL, we never use the word "gay." The guide states that the word "gay" is "a euphemism intended to present a positive image of homosexual behavior and downplay its sordid nature – the sexual deviance lobby's equivalent of 'choice.'"

Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, an expert in this matter, concurs, saying that the word "gay" is a socio-political term, not a psychological condition.

In my day, when Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were tripping the light fantastic, gay was a synonym for happiness. In fact, its primary definition means happiness.

What is happy about homosexuality?

To understand the Church's teaching on homosexuality, we can examine Pope Paul VI's renowned encyclical, Humanae Vitae, the much-maligned infallible teaching which states, in part:

It is to be anticipated that perhaps not everyone will easily accept this particular teaching. There is too much clamorous outcry against the voice of the Church, and this is intensified by modern means of communication. But it comes as no surprise to the Church that she, no less than her divine Founder, is destined to be a "sign of contradiction…"

In preserving intact the whole moral law of marriage, the Church is convinced that she is contributing to the creation of a truly human civilization. She urges man not to betray his personal responsibilities by putting all his faith in technical expedients. In this way she defends the dignity of husband and wife.

In other words, the preservation of the entire body of moral law includes an absolute prohibition on artificial means of preventing the procreation of children within the context of marital union.

Well, in 1968, this teaching was disparaged from the pulpit, treated with silence by most bishops, and literally ignored by Catholics privately and in public life. Contraception, the ability of man to control birth by rejecting God, became commonplace among the general population, including the majority of Catholics.

This failure to reject contraception leads to abortion. The most popular argument that proves this point is: "If my birth control fails, I need to get rid of my problem."

Planned Parenthood and its allies were at the forefront of this assault on moral law. From the beginning they wanted abortion to become the fail-safe method of "choice."

This initial rejection of the natural law led to all manner of deviation from moral law, ethics, and common sense. History bears this out. There is no debate except between those who know that Catholic teaching on this subject is infallible and those who think Catholic teaching is of no value. It is really that simple.

Father Paul Marx, one of the pro-life movement's strongest leaders, and one of the few in our ranks to have visited more than 30 countries, told us years ago:

In every nation, bar none, contraception has led to abortion – and from abortion to infanticide, the prelude to full-blown euthanasia! Once the purposes of sex are torn loose from procreation and the family, the homosexual thrust rears its ugly head, teen pregnancies and abortions sky-rocket, VD burgeons out of control, the divorce rate escalates, the birthrate falls, while the barnyard approach to birth control called sterilization becomes commonplace. Soon we see the swift disintegration of the family.

At this point in our history as a nation, and particularly as Catholics, we should be able to see clearly, based on what has already transpired in the culture and the law, that Wednesday's Supreme Court decisions are not really a surprise at all. In fact, they represent a natural progression in man's desire to denigrate the natural law, distort it, and otherwise trample on truth in deference to politically popular buzzwords such as "freedom of choice" or "personal rights."

It is at the same time a challenge to each of us to engage members of society through teaching truth and doing all we can to restore a culture of life. Nothing short of this will ever be effective in stemming this tide of indescribable evil.

Judie Brown is president and co-founder of American Life League (ALL), the nation's largest grassroots pro-life educational organization. She is currently serving her second five-year term as a member of the Pontifical Academy for Life in Rome. Daily Catholic cited her as one of the top 100 Catholics of the 20th century.

It’s Not The Homosex, Stupid

Here’s an article I wrote in 2008, as commentary on a disturbing trend. Since it’s very closely related to my series on the intrinsic evil of contraception, I present it for your consideration. You may like the way in which it accounts for the intersections of various crises in today’s culture wars. (Or you may not!)

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It’s Not The Homosex, Stupid

With all due respect to savvy Mark Steyn who quipped “It’s the Demography, Stupid,” I wish Steyn would have pushed back for us the curtain of Western society’s bedroom a little further in order to give us a glimpse of the smirking elephant in the closet. Heaven knows we desperately need a paradigm shift in our thinking about sexual “freedom” in the bedroom.

Is it my imagination or do you notice that a great many “conservative” culture warriors—individuals and organizations, Christians and otherwise—have taken to lobbing grenades at those promoting and engaging in homosex, making that the defining strategy, if not obsession, of their war? According to them, among the top threats to our civilization is the “homosexual” agenda.

So let me ask you. What would you think of drivers who ignored red lights but who regularly demonized speeding drivers as the real enemies on the road? Comical? Yes, but consider this. Heterosexuals who rail against homosex, which indeed is a particularly odious variation of sterile sex, are—with strikingly few exceptions—themselves egregiously addicted to their own pleasurable variety of sterile sex. Equally comical, of course, if you consider sterile sex per se to be in a league with dangerous behaviours such as running red lights.

But please don’t jump ship at this point. Hear me out. I know that our post modern society, parroting the relativism of its enlightened pulpiteers, considers this subject settled and entirely off limits. Any suggestion to re-open it is probably constituted an offense in itself—a possible relapse to a prudish repressive sexual ethic of Victorian times.

“But we believe in real marriage, the traditional kind, one man and one woman for life, and sex only in that context. That’s the correct standard because it’s God’s standard. A married man and woman can make their own decisions in good conscience about the kind of sex they engage in. It’s nobody else’s business.”

Indeed, that’s the claim, but tragically these days it rarely goes beyond a claim. For too many conservatives, yes, and Christians also, who normally relish opportunities to expose politically correct speech, the lack of reasoned debate and evasions of the truth, a remarkable about-turn takes place when the truth concerning sexual disorders gets a little too close to home.

Whoa there! Truth? Disorders? According to who?

Can it be a shock to the reader that throughout two millennia of Western civilization—as well as nearly two millennia of Jewish thought which preceded it—the moral consensus on sterile sex could be summed up like this: All sexual activity, both heterosexual and otherwise, practiced with a view to circumvent procreation constitutes a perversion of God’s order and an abomination.

Here we could take our pick of sources, from the Early Fathers through to Martin Luther, John Calvin, or any other reputable preacher, bible scholar or theologian, right up to the early and mid 1900’s. All—without exception—considered these acts as “a most unnatural wickedness, and a grievous wrong.”

Thus we had the American and Canadian laws which prohibited the sale and distribution of devices that aided in such perversity and which were not rescinded until the 1960’s. Thus we record the witness of some of Western society’s most public figures, such as U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, who matter-of-factly labeled the practice of birth control as “the capital sin” against civilization.

But are such ideas peculiarly Western, or even Christian? A surprising number of non-Western cultures throughout history fully squared with Christian teaching on this point. Mahatma Ghandi, a world famous reformer and Hindu, condemned sterile heterosex as a corrupter of morals, a destroyer of marriage and a further degradation of women.

But regardless, truth—the old-fashioned objective kind—is no respecter of cultures and the fallout in our society from a denial of this particular truth has been debilitating. Take note of the Anglicans, the first Christian denomination to break rank with the faith of their fathers on this major doctrine. They formalized the opening of a Pandora’s Box in 1930 by allowing certain exceptions for sterile heterosex and are now being rent asunder by the practice of sterile homosex in the bedrooms of their Bishops. Coincidence?

The extreme break with Christian tradition represented by this acculturated disorder raises serious questions about just how much hostility towards God we have harbored this past generation or two. Some say our rejection of God—played out in this sexual arena—has so cursed our Western society as to account for not only our sex-crazed degeneracy but also family and marriage deformities and breakups, the abortion holocaust, dangerously higher quotas of immigration due to falling birthrates, the growing threat of Islam, the secularization phenomenon with its evil twin Christianophobia and a mounting civilizational self-loathing.

This is a hard pill for many to swallow. But can we admit this much at least: Steyn got it perfectly right when he prophesied the death of Western society due to reproductive sterility. Not for a moment did he suggest that even ten thousand new conferences and/or books on Islam, the tyranny of homosex, the battle for marriage and the family, secular humanism or Christophobia would save us. No, very clearly he stated that it was the question of birthrate which we have refused to address. That alone will cause our society to implode. Steyn put his finger on the precise nature of the problem. Likewise the solution, if it was any closer, might jump up and bite us.

The yearning of many contemporary Christians for a cultural fix through revivalist and “biblical” calls to repentance must also take the birthrate—and sterile heterosex—into account. Though some will contest the point, it must be admitted that any conversion wrought through the preaching of a Whitefield, Finney, et al will not only demand our hearts get right with God but will necessarily reinstitute cultural prohibitions and taboos supporting the age old and exegetically superior biblical interpretation of the sin of Onanism.

The very thought makes many shudder and some to say,

Surely, God, we can instead pay women to have babies, still hold on to our hard earned sexual “freedoms” and save our future. Otherwise, God, this is really going to hurt!

The suggestion that our future hinges on the abandonment of sterile heterosex is utterly disconcerting. It’s too much to grasp—let alone admit—that old fashioned traditional Western wisdom on sexuality was spot on.

But no, it was much more than that. It truly was a civilizational bulwark.

Preachers and pundits would do well then to cease from their various crusades against homosex, Islam, etc. in order to refocus their energies and resources to formulate a new strategy which targets the real enemy. By attacking the ideology and behaviour which is directly fuelling our demographic demise, our odds of making gains in this war are markedly improved.

Another point must be raised. The defense of current phony and lethal sexual “liberties” may be worthy of the label progressive but hardly worthy of the label conservative, and certainly unworthy of the name Christian, at least historically. Such perversions of true liberty were legitimized by the victories of yesteryear’s liberals yet they currently enslave us because they are defended by today’s “conservatives.” Conservatives must seriously examine their own complicity in the sterile sex agenda—which has aided in the destruction of society and has rightly identified them as co-conspirators—and be encouraged to instead stand in defense of established Western wisdom.

Conservatives must decide what it is that they are fighting to conserve. Indeed, what else deserves conservation, other than the collective wisdom and institutions central to Western thought and civilization? Isn’t this precisely why conservatives fight unhesitatingly against abortion, attacks on marriage, disintegration of family, pornography, lowering of morals, etc? Yet why have we not been fighting the one mortal enemy which Western wisdom has explicitly warned—in loudest fashion this past 100 years—would spawn precisely such an epidemic of evils? Sterile heterosex is a beguiling demon of tremendous significance and must be opposed with all our energies and by all possible means.

Instead, we have been trying to beef up our society in order to withstand the intense battering spawned by our own endorsement of sexual license: Educate about the radical homosexual agenda. Expose the dangers and tyranny of secular humanism. Equip Canadians to confront the threat of Islam. Bolster the family and marriage and fight those who attack it.

It’s like trying to engineer more impact resistant cars rather than require drivers to stop at red lights. At this stage, it seems we have even forgotten the red light is there, or perhaps by now we have removed it entirely from the intersection. Is it any wonder the “culture war” is being lost?

So yes, it is the behaviour and specifically it’s sterile sex—of all brands. With great courage, it needs to be identified as such, properly condemned and duly proscribed.

Which again brings us back to Steyn’s famous line and his sober closing:

It's the demography, stupid. And, if they can't muster the will to change course, then "What do you leave behind?" is the only question that matters.

Letter to Canadian Archbishop: Why Don`t Bishops, Priests Heed Canon 915?

Recently I posted a letter written to an Archbishop prior to the legalization of same sex marriage in Canada in 2005. Other letters were exchanged at the same time on related subjects. The following is one such letter, dealing primarily with Canon 915, and has been edited only slightly, with some personal details removed, in order to make it suitable for this posting.

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May 2005

Dear Archbishop,

I appreciate your response to my two previous letters of concern. I can only say that I am deeply disappointed to hear that your continued approach with Prime Minister Paul Martin and other scandal generating Catholic politicians is simply one of ‘patient dialogue.’

Much could be said about Church teaching on this matter and I am quite confident that you are fully informed on these matters. You referred to the means of ‘canonical sanctions’ yet you did not respond to the more basic issue of defense of the Holy Eucharist. As a Catholic I am realizing more and more the central importance and significance of the Holy Eucharist to the life of the Catholic. As John Paul II reminded Catholics, the Eucharist is the source and summit of Christian experience. Could it not be said then that the unworthy reception of the same is the basest and most defiling action the Christian can take? Who will defend Jesus in the Most Holy Eucharist from such defilement (and the sinner from further condemnation)?

Canon 915 is a sacramental law that refers to the Eucharist and how not to suffer scandal; it is not a penal law. Bishops are called to govern and correct and an unworthy act of Holy Communion, willfully chosen by an obstinate, persistent sinner, is a most grave matter. A conscientious faithful bishop in such a situation would not be putting 'sanction' on the person in question; the offender has, in fact, fallen under the canon 915 sacramental prohibition themselves.

Paul Martin is an aggressively pro-abortion, pro-gay ‘marriage’ Catholic politician who continues to scandalize the Catholic community in a most acute persistent manner. The Vatican has spoken repeatedly on who may or may not be admitted to Holy Communion:

“there should be no such refusal to any Catholic who presents himself for Holy Communion at Mass, except in cases presenting a danger of grave scandal to other believers arising out of the person's unrepented public sin or obstinate heresy or schism, publicly professed or declared."

Canon 915 places the responsibility on the minister should he unlawfully administer the sacrament with the consequent danger of scandal for the rest of the faithful.

Very soon now, if nothing is placed in his way, Martin intends to force same sex ‘marriage’ on all Canadians, persisting in his grave sin and risking what the Vatican states as “wide-reaching and profound influence”  and resulting  “in changes to the entire organization of society, contrary to the common good.”

Is the Church’s sacramental law simply words on a paper somewhere in the Vatican, and without substance or force? Does it apply at all to any other Catholic anywhere else outside the Vatican? If so, then it must surely apply to Paul Martin and other Catholic politicians (no doubt to scores of other Catholics living in mortal sin as well) who willfully sin by holding vital Church teachings in contempt, and then present themselves as “good” Catholics wishing to receive the Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ who paid the supreme price of His Life because of the sin of mankind. What an insufferable outrage!

If bishops and priests don’t respect and honour Church teaching, (and the Most Holy Eucharist) how can it be expected that Catholics in the pews or in politics will show respect? What a heartbreak it is to see all these offenses occurring with impunity in full view of Canadian bishops!

It makes my heart break further when I see at Sunday Mass the little children who are being greeted with smiles, prayers and words of good will and blessing just prior to being sent off for Christian catechesis. They will learn far more from the example and legacy of their leaders and teachers than they will from any formal catechesis. In a few short years they will be amongst the thousands (even millions) of victims of the corruption and evil that took root and flourished in Canadian society because Church leaders were too weak, faithless and disobedient to Church teaching to take every precaution possible to protect them and the rest of society. Is this not the gravest kind of offense to the little ones that Jesus spoke of?

While reading an article just this week I was struck by a startling statement made years ago by Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, in an address to the Knights of Columbus, who said:

"Who is going to save our Church? Not our bishops, not our priests and religious. It is up to you, the people. You have the minds, the eyes, the ears to save the Church. Your mission is to see that your priests act like priests, your bishops like bishops and your religious act like religious."  

Startling, but also immensely sobering. What sort of actions can the ordinary Catholic undertake to accomplish such a task? God Himself must provide the answer individually for each one asking, but then rise to the task one must.  

The grace of God be with you.