“It Can’t Happen Here”? | The Lewis Crusade

“It Can’t Happen Here”? | The Lewis Crusade:



Well worth reading, for those who think that we still have a First Amendment after this disaster of a Supreme Court.

Today I celebrate 16 years of an illegal marriage

It wasn't illegal when we started, but as of today, when the Supreme Court has officially embraced "consent" and "love" rather than commitment and having children to be in the next generation, it is now.

I'm celebrating anyway-16 years of defiance against the standards of the morally bankrupt sexual revolution.

A short poem

The Cultural Warrior

That sinking feeling you get
When you realize
The battle was lost
Long before you were born

Important quotes for Americans to avoid the heresy of Americanism

Laudato Si offers us some insight into the Church's opinions on many current political problems in America.   We would be wise indeed to listen to the words of Pope Francis on these topics; all of them will require adjustments to American culture and our habits of indifferent individualism.

On what we individally can do to help the environment

"Education in environmental responsibility can encourage ways of acting which directly and significantly affect the world around us, such as avoiding the use of plastic and paper, reducing water consumption, separating refuse, cooking only what can reasonably be consumed, showing care for other living beings, using public transport or car-pooling, planting trees, turning off unnecessary lights, or any number of other practices. All of these reflect a generous and worthy creativity which brings out the best in human beings. Reusing something instead of immediately discarding it, when done for the right reasons, can be an act of love which expresses our own dignity. (#211)

On water as a fundamental right

“One particularly serious problem is the quality of water available to the poor…. Yet access to safe drinkable water is a basic and universal human right, since it is essential to human survival and, as such, is a condition for the exercise of other human rights. Our world has a grave social debt towards the poor who lack access to drinking water, because they are denied the right to a life consistent with their inalienable dignity” (#29-30).


On social media’s effects on our culture

“When media and the digital world become omnipresent, their influence can stop
people from learning how to live wisely, to think deeply and to love generously…. True wisdom, as the fruit of self-examination, dialogue and generous encounter between persons, is not acquired by a mere accumulation of data which eventually leads to overload and confusion, a sort of mental pollution.

“Real relationships with others, with all the challenges they entail, now tend to be replaced by a type of internet communication which enables us to choose or eliminate relationships at whim, thus giving rise to a new type of contrived emotion which has more to do with devices and displays than with other people and with nature” (#47).


On overpopulation

“Instead of resolving the problems of the poor and thinking of how the world can be different, some can only propose a reduction in the birth rate. At times, developing countries face forms of international pressure which make economic assistance contingent on certain policies of ‘reproductive health’….  To blame population growth instead of extreme and selective consumerism on the part of some, is one way of refusing to face the issues” (#50).


On transgender issues

“Learning to accept our body, to care for it and to respect its fullest meaning, is an essential element of any genuine human ecology. Also, valuing one’s own body in its femininity or masculinity is necessary if I am going to be able to recognize myself in an encounter with someone who is different. In this way we can joyfully accept the specific gifts of another man or woman, the work of God the Creator, and find mutual enrichment. It is not a healthy attitude which would seek ‘to cancel out sexual difference because it no longer knows how to confront it’” (#120).


On abortion

“Since everything is interrelated, concern for the protection of nature is also incompatible with the justification of abortion. How can we genuinely teach the importance of concern for other vulnerable beings, however troublesome or inconvenient they may be, if we fail to protect a human embryo, even when its presence is uncomfortable and creates difficulties? ‘If personal and social sensitivity towards the acceptance of the new life is lost, then other forms of acceptance that are valuable for society also wither away’” (#120).


On genetically modified food

This, then, is the correct framework for any reflection concerning human intervention on plants and animals, which at present includes genetic manipulation by biotechnology for the sake of exploiting the potential present in material reality. The respect owed by faith to reason calls for close attention to what the biological sciences, through research uninfluenced by economic interests, can teach us about biological structures, their possibilities and their mutations. Any legitimate intervention will act on nature only in order ‘to favour its development in its own line, that of creation, as intended by God’” (#132) (More on this topic in #133-135)


On the problem of modern day politics

“That is why, in the absence of pressure from the public and from civic institutions, political authorities will always be reluctant to intervene, all the more when urgent needs must be met. To take up these responsibilities and the costs they entail, politicians will inevitably clash with the mindset of short-term gain and results which dominates present-day economics and politics. But if they are courageous, they will attest to their God-given dignity and leave behind a testimony of selfless responsibility” (#181).

On hope in this situation

“Yet all is not lost. Human beings, while capable of the worst, are also capable of rising above themselves, choosing again what is good, and making a new start, despite their mental and social conditioning. We are able to take an honest look at ourselves, to acknowledge our deep dissatisfaction, and to embark on new paths to authentic freedom. No system can completely suppress our openness to what is good, true and beautiful, or our God-given ability to respond to his grace at work deep in our hearts. I appeal to everyone throughout the world not to forget this dignity which is ours. No one has the right to take it from us. (#205)”

The History of Laudato Sii- Ecology meets Distributism

I'm only halfway through reading it, but paragraphs 120-130 clearly put this new encyclical firmly into the tradition of Distributism. So without further ado, here are links to the now 8 encyclicals and one Apostolic Exhortation on human economics:

Rerum Novarum from Pope Leo XIII

Quadragesimo Anno from Pope Pius XI

Mater et Magistra from Pope John XXIII

Populum Progresso from Pope Paul VI

Laborem Exercens from Pope John Paul II

Centesimus Annus from Pope John Paul II

Sollicitudo Rei Socialis from Pope John Paul II

Caritas In Veritate by Pope Benedict XVI

Evangelii Gaudium by Pope Francis
Laudato Sii by Pope Francis
I can easily believe that for libertarians who do not understand the full history, much of this latest document won't make sense either- it is one in keeping with the whole "You are your brother's keeper" theme, and I just got the following tweet:

@Pontifex: There is no room for the globalization of indifference. #LaudatoSi

Amen, Papa Francisco, Amen.

Human Sexuality North of the Tropic of Cancer

I've noticed something. It's correlation, not causation, but it's a strange fact regardless.

Human beings north of the Tropic of Cancer have stopped breeding at replacement levels.  Every country North of the Tropic of Cancer needs immigration just to keep the population stable in the last 20 years.

Human beings south of the Tropic of Cancer are still breeding above replacement levels.  Which means these countries are who are providing the immigrants.

Why I remain Catholic, but will I? #WhyIAmCatholic

This is my answer to The Anchoress's Challenge

I am Catholic because after several years of study, I have found it to be a complete and consistent worldview that has evolved to support sustainable life on this planet we call Earth.  I'm not a particularly good Catholic.  I don't pray as much as I should, and while being extremely generous with the three T's of Time, Talent, and Treasure, I often use my generosity in sinful ways, which has affected my family and my marriage.

I am currently going through the type of crisis of faith that sent many other souls running screaming from the Church.  I do not know if I will withstand what comes out of the upcoming synod, it feels very much like the way of Catholicism I have been practicing is under attack from within as well as without; the winds of change attack me at a level very deep down in my soul.

And yet, I guess partially because of my autism, I persevere- too stubborn to admit that it would be far easier to join in the material hedonism of the age, too stubborn to think that perhaps those who say we should have only five sacraments rather than seven have a point.

I may be martyred for this faith that even the Pope no longer seems to want.  If so, let me go to Purgatory safe in the knowledge that I am wrong- but so is everybody else. #WhyIAmCatholic

Josh Duggar's victims were unaware of his crime

There has been much written about how the Duggars were wrong to let it go on so long- but the  initial victims were all asleep, the touching was not bare skin, it was over clothes.  There was a concern about harming the other children.  This interview is fascinating.

One big thing I noticed:  The Duggars practice Quiverful Christianity- but a very conservative version.  When in part III of the interview (at the link) discussed safeguards in the home, I see all of the "creepy" bits of their courtship rituals have been affected by this abuse.  And yet still, three of the most affected people, the perpetrator and two of his victims, have now started families of their own in apparently happy marriages.

That must really make those who have invested years into the sexual revolution and the dogma of consent-based sexuality very angry indeed.

Which might be while the police violated their public trust and turned the police records over to a tabloid.

I'd like to think this is deep theology

Women Church of England Priests want to further damage Anglican/Roman relations by Calling God She as if Catholics haven't been referring to God by both genders since the 200s A.D.

To bad it's really about chasing more men out of the Church, and making it more impossible for men to be Christian.

Article 7 of the United States Constitution Acknowledges Christianity

I never noticed this before:

Article 7 of the US Constitution reads, in part:

 the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven 

If the founders acknowledged Jesus Christ as Lord over our government, then the whole idea of the separation of church and state is a falsehood perpetuated to destroy that government.