Incoherence!

It kills me the way our judges have deified “the law” all the while ignoring our actual all powerful God and that thing called Truth.

A short anecdote which illustrates this syndrome:  In Findlay, Ohio back in 1994 Mr. Donald Miller Jr. was declared legally dead.  We were not told the reason for that other than his people had no idea where he was for a very long time.  This month, Mr. Miller appealed to the court to reverse that previous declaration due to the salient fact that he remains very much alive.  Judge Allan Davis denied that request on the grounds that such an appeal must be made, according to the law, within three years of the declaration, and Mr. Miller is too late.  In other words, to heck with the truth of the matter, the law has spoken and must be honored!  So, alas, poor Mr. Donald Miller Jr. is still “dead”.

If only they were so scrupulous about birth certificates…

...and it comes to pass...

"I am worried by the Blessed Virgin's messages to Lucy of

Fatima. This persistence of Mary about the dangers which 

menace the Church is a divine warning against the suicide

 of altering the Faith, in Her liturgy, Her theology and Her 

soul. … I hear all around me innovators who wish to 

dismantle the Sacred Chapel, destroy the universal flame 

of the Church, reject Her ornaments and make Her feel 

remorse for Her historical past.

"A day will come when the civilized world will deny its God,

 when the Church will doubt as Peter doubted. She will be 

tempted to believe that man has become God. In our 

churches, Christians will search in vain for the red lamp 

where God awaits them. Like Mary Magdalene, weeping 

before the empty tomb, they will ask, 'Where have they 

taken Him?'"

Eugenio Pacelli, future Pius XII.

Roche, "Pie XII Devant L'Historie", p. 52-53

Mosquito!

One of the most remarkable stories of World War II is that of the De Havilland Mosquito Fighter-Bomber.  This little airplane was faster, smarter, more aggressive and useful than any other two types employed by the allied air forces.  This You-Tube segment tells the tale.  In the blistering technological pace of development during the war years the Mosquito spent five years as "the Best" and finished the war obsolete.  Today there are only around seven Mosquito airframes known to exist.

My father, my son and I visited the Military Aviation Museum in Virginia Beach this past weekend.  They have the only airworthy Mosquito in the world.  It was eight years in refurbishment and is beautiful.  I envy the pilots who are so privileged to fly it today. 

I hope you watch the video and come to admire the remarkable feats of airmanship that this wonderful airplane inspired in her short flight of glory.

Dear Congress:

Dear Congress:

Do not raise the debt.  Let it stop here, now.  Let us begin a period wherein we live within our means and responsibly pay our way.  Let it be said, two generations from now when the dollar is once again the strongest currency on the planet and the United States has the strongest economy; when the debt is once again a measly one trillion dollars, that we went through our selfish years but thankfully, we out grew those times.  Let it start now!  Today, let us resolve to never raise the debt ceiling again and to enact legislation to reduce our debt by five percent per year until it is at one trillion dollars.  Let this legislation stipulate that deficits can never be run again unless we are involved in a congressional declared war, and even then the debt is paid down following such war at five percent per year.

I understand that this is impossible when we consider the obligations we face as a country.  When I talk of the national debt most people roll their eyes and say something silly like, "We just owe it to ourselves.", as if this eliminates the seriousness of the situation.  It is true that the vast majority of the future obligations are to "ourselves" in such programs as Social Security, Medi-care, Obama-care, Pharma-care, welfare programs, on and on and on...  OK.  I'll go along with that thought.  Let us resolve not to pay "ourselves" anymore.  If we shut down all of those self-centered "gimme" programs we might have a slim chance of avoiding a catastrophic failure of the dollar.  If we don't, then we won't see those monies anyway due to the inevitable dollar melt-down.

If we eliminate the social programs we should be able to protect the bond holders, those who are owed the sixteen-trillion dollars.  If we protect them, we show the world that we are a nation who can be trusted, a nation who will not weasel out of an obligation.  If we demonstrate that kind of solvency the European Union and China will hear the "giant sucking sound of jobs" coming back to us, the newly great United States of America!

If we fail to do this, now, we will face ruin.  I will state for the record that I am solemnly resolved never to take any money from a federal government source other than a tax refund.  I will not collect Social Security, take advantage of any medical program, or any other social program.  My reason is simple.  If I collect from Social Security "the money I paid in" I am not getting the same money I paid in; I am taking it from my children and their children.  The money I paid is already gone, spent, vanished, poof!  To demand what is "mine" will only press our country into default and suffering.

We always laud the "greatest generation" for their sacrifices in economic hardship and war.  Let us now rise to their example and stop this insanity now, so help us God!  NO MORE DEBT!

October 5, 2013 A.R.S.H.
Anno Reparatae Salutis Humanae

On It Goes...

An USA Today article published Friday September 13, 2013 titled Remarriage in an age of cohabitation, discussed at length the current trends demonstrating the erosion of any Christian understanding of what marriage is.

“Cohabitation has opened up options for people that weren’t there 20 years ago.  It affords the benefits of marriage without the legal constraints.”  (Susan Brown, Sociologist and lead author of an analysis of federal data by the National Center for Family and Marriage Research at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, as quoted by Sharon Jayson, USA Today)

A generation ago, cohabitation was often called ‘living in sin,” but that taboo has faded.  Unmarried couples of all ages are moving in together – 7.8 million, according to 2012 Census data… Between 1990 and 2012, the percentage of unmarried couples living together more than doubled, from 5.1% to 11.3% (Sharon Jayson, USA Today)

This is not progress and it is not good news.  What, exactly, are the “legal constraints” that it seems good to avoid; the promise of fidelity, the promise of support no matter what life throws out, the promise to help raise the children?  This attitude demonstrates the game changing effects of universal acceptance for contraception.  Would all of these couples, especially the women, be so cavalier if they knew that a significant part of the matrix would be children?  No!  They are calculating their future happiness on the premise that contraception will keep children, and the attendant responsibilities, at bay.

Even more grave is their failure to discern their responsibility to the natural law.  More specifically, they no longer believe in accountability to God’s authority; to the fact that while we do not call it “living in sin” anymore, it still is just that, living in sin and obstinate sin brings death.

I know that most people in the western world no longer believe in hell and damnation anymore, but that doesn't make it go away.  Truth doesn't change with the times and popular belief.  God gave us His teachings in Christ.  Christ declared what sexual morality required.  If we are to find happiness in this world and, more importantly, the next, we need to follow those teachings to the letter because they comply with the two greatest commandments, to love God with our whole heart, our whole soul and our whole mind; and to love our neighbor as our self.

Panzerlied

One comment said it best, "There is something so German about a tank."

While war is the result of a complete breakdown of society, one must admire those who fight it so bravely.  If we get another war it is imperative that each one of us understands our duty to God first then country.

Contracepting Society and Life

The public perception of marriage today is so severely mutated from the truth of what it is; we cannot imagine the graces that a man and woman receive when they live a marriage in the manner God intended.  We cannot understand how drastically such a fundamental building block of the civil order has been altered and how that has produced such disastrous conditions in our society.

Firstly – in its basic and proper form, marriage is only between one man and one woman, for the natural life of the first to pass away, with no contraception of children for any reason, with each person loving the other without reservation or of the requirement of reciprocity.  There is no such thing as divorce.  This is indeed the basic building block of any rational and peaceful society.  This provides for the continuation of the human race and provides for the consistency of laws, skills and social responsibility over the ribbon of time.  Most importantly, this accords with the will of God.

While that is the standard of excellence, the standard set by our Lord Jesus Christ, we have strayed away from that.  It is likely that the most common error embraced by married people today is contraception.  Practicing contraception, by anyone, for any reason was universally prohibited by every Christian tradition, established church in the world until 1930.  The first organized church to crack open that door was the Anglican Church of England.  At their Lambeth Conference of 1930 their bishops ever so reluctantly, ever so restrictively prescribed very narrow conditions wherein a married couple could, for the gravest of reasons, contracept:

Resolutions from 1930

Resolution 15

The Life and Witness of the Christian Community - Marriage and Sex

Where there is clearly felt moral obligation to limit or avoid parenthood, the method must be decided on Christian principles. The primary and obvious method is complete abstinence from intercourse (as far as may be necessary) in a life of discipline and self-control lived in the power of the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless in those cases where there is such a clearly felt moral obligation to limit or avoid parenthood, and where there is a morally sound reason for avoiding complete abstinence, the Conference agrees that other methods may be used, provided that this is done in the light of the same Christian principles. The Conference records its strong condemnation of the use of any methods of conception control from motives of selfishness, luxury, or mere convenience.

Voting: For 193; Against 67. Lambeth Conference 1930

This resolution is flawed from the start due to the salient fact that you cannot commit any grave evil on “Christian principles”.  Notice how they condemn contraception for “motives of selfishness, luxury, or mere convenience”.  That describes perfectly the motives of everyone contracepting today.  Once this resolution was adopted, by the Anglicans it was a short run to acceptance by every “Christian” denomination except the Holy Roman Catholic Church.  While the entire world expected the Catholic Church to come along on this, in 1968 she issued the papal encyclical Humanae Vitae in which she correctly labels contraception a grave evil and declares to the entire world that no one may commit such an act for any reason.  Unfortunately, by that time, the cat was out of the bag and the vast majority of the peoples of the western world believed the lies and regarded the Catholic declaration to be irrelevant.

The great lie was, that allowing contraception, within marriages, would strengthen those marriages due to a lower “burden” of children.  In reality, contraception diminished the sacred and self-pledging bond that husbands and wives held and reduced them to a weird social contract which could be broken at will.  Reducing the marital embrace to recreation reduced the mutual esteem required to sustain marriage in this hard world.  Divorce rose drastically in the years following 1930.

Sex without consequences soon became the normal attitude.  Infidelity in marriage and singles “hooking up” is now expected.  Today there are more couples living together outside of marriage than within.  Now, many of the nations of the western world have reduced their birth rates to levels which cannot sustain their current populations.  But wait…there’s more.

Once the wives had fewer children they were not allowed to sit around and enjoy their more leisurely lives, they were sent to work.  The effect of that was to reduce the family wages by half so that today both spouses must work to support a family.  Rather than fulfilling her nature as a nurturing wife and mother the “liberated” woman of today is a field mule by day and a concubine by night.  Working mothers bring the need for the day care industry, which reduces the take home wages significantly, and shifts the training and nurturing of our children to strangers who have little interest in the outcome.

It gets worse.  Since sex is now simply a recreational activity, then women are treated with less respect than ever.  We have a huge abortion industry to support the “no consequences” philosophy and we run these poor used women through it every day to take care of “their” biological problem, with devastating damage to their psychological balance.

It goes on.  Same sex marriage makes sense if the real thing is no longer sacred or permanent.  Germany has petting zoos wherein visitors are allowed to go “all the way” with the animals.  Down, down, down we drive the boundaries of decency and morality.

Sex always has consequences.  Within a lawful, church sanctioned marriage, without contraception, the consequences are love, peace, children and stable societies.  Outside of such a marriage, the consequences are all of the above noted maladies with the worst consequence of all to come – you do not get to heaven, you do not feel the love of God, you suffer in hell.

We must fight this terrible lie.  Tell anyone who talks of “girlfriends” or “boyfriends” or expresses support for any of these gravely wrong sins, the truth.  Fight for these lost souls because you love them as Christ loves us all.