Some Common Sense from an Uncommon Priest

My friend, Fr. Tom Collins, always has a direct and no-nonsense way of looking at things. His article below makes it obvious, I think, how much damage has been done by the failure of our shepherds to speak clearly and unequivocally about the evils drowning our culture. It's long past time for the bishops to implement Canon Law 915 and deny Communion to pro-abortion and pro-contraceptive politicians who scandalize (up to now) without consequence. The rock of persecution has started its dangerous roll down the mountain and we better act now because the avalanche is coming.


The Auschwitz Option

It seems that with the latest HHS directives, which were issued with the authority given to it by the Obama "Health Care Act",are requiring Catholic institutions to provide free contraceptive, abortifacient and sterilization services Such a directive directly violates the Church's teaching on the sacredness of all human life. Sadly, we have been so seriously degraded by years of dialogue with the Culture of Death that we are now at a point of pulling back on our unequivocal support for the sanctity of all human life. Instead, we seem ready to concede that it is OK for secular hospitals to provide these services, just so long as we are dispensed" by our most benevolent government from the requirement to violate our own consciences. This is analogous to German Catholics in 1943 conceding the "right" of the Reich to operate Auschwitz, provided that Catholics not be required to run the trains that brought new "residents" to that camp. Or it may be likened to high priests in Jn 18:28, who wanted to be exempted from going into the praetorium lest they defile themselves.

The issue is further complicated by Church leaders continuing to give a "free pass" to those "Catholics" who seek to abuse the Eucharistic Christ by receiving Holy Communion as a tacit endorsement of their pro-actively pro-abortion efforts. If the incarnate teaching of the Church (i.e., actual Church praxis, in contrast to the formal doctrinal teaching of the Magisterium) continues to give legitimacy to the idea that
Jesus Himself, as the Holy Eucharist, is giving an approving "thumbs up" to the barbaric practice of promoting the butchery of millions of of innocent children, how can we deceive ourselves into thinking that the Church is giving credible witness to the sacredness of all human life? Lip service to the Gospel ("This people honors Me with their lips . . .") is not adequate. Decisive convictions require decisive actions, not the perpetuation of dialogue with the demons of depravity and death.

As long as Church leaders give a "free pass" to such ongoing desecration of the Blessed Sacrament (and tell their priests and deacons to follow in the tradition of Judas by handing over the Eucharistic Christ for desecration in the hands of those committed to killing the innocent), our witness to life will be continue to be an object of scorn and ridicule.

Although my personal convictions are not in accord with the current practice of the universal Church, I believe that such practice is decisively legitimatizing, and even perversely "sacramentalizing" abortion by the continuing widespread abuse of "the source and summit of the sacramental life of the Church". Such
abuse is sacrilegious. Thus it is no wonder that we, as Church leaders, by preferring to suppress the truth in order not to "violate" sin-seared consciences, have come to see millions of souls hemorrhaging from the Church into perversity and even eternal damnation at such a high rate over the past half a century. We need major fasting, reparation and prayer - and not the kind that is followed by cocktails at 6PM.
God have mercy on us!