Michael Voris: Spiritual Warrior or Great Divider?

Michael Voris

Michael Voris of Churchmilitant.tv is a very controversial figure among Catholics.  He is a one-time fallen-away Catholic who has come back to the church in full force and formed his own internet media company whose self-proclaimed mission is "to promote the faith given to humanity by Jesus Christ, the Son of God, God and the Messiah. This faith is the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church led by the heir of Saint Peter, Pope Benedict XVI."  Sounds like a good thing.  The problem many have with him is that he seems to have a terrible habit of attacking fellow Catholics and specifically, the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, i.e. priests and bishops.

I, like Michael Voris, am a "cradle" Catholic (I don't really like that term) who left and then came back to the Church after 38 years.  I could barely recognize the Catholic Church as the same one I had known as a child.  The church buildings looked completely different, with tables in place of the glorious high altars I had known as a kid, most of the statues seemed to have been removed, the magnificent Stations of the Cross had been replaced with little stick figure stations and many of the confessionals were now storage closets, to name just a few of the changes.  I was stunned at people's demeanor in church, from the kind of clothes they were wearing to the fact that no one seemed to have any qualms about holding loud and disruptive conversations before and after Mass (and sometimes during Mass), children playing with toys during Mass, and almost no one bowing or genuflecting in front of the Tabernacle.

These are the kinds of issues that Michael Voris speaks to, so he really captured my attention.  I felt like he gave a real voice to my feelings and frustrations.

Lately, though, I have begun to feel differently about the way in which Voris defends the Church.  He is a lot like talk radio in that he creates an "us versus them" mentality, and the "them", more often than not, is not even those in the secular world world who actively oppose the Church, but our own bishops and priests.  Voris actually seems to relish pointing out the spiritual failings of the bishops and priests of the "Church of Nice" as he calls it.

On January 3 Voris produced a video to explain the mission of his organization.   He entitled this, "Slaying Dragons."  You can watch the video here.  As he explains, he sees the role of the Church as basically a militant warrior destroying evil wherever it is found:

We are prepared to do battle against the forces of darkness .. namely the kingdom of Hell and Satan which hates humanity because we are God’s most precious and beloved creatures. As the Old testament says of God .. “it is my delight to strive with the sons of men.” Imagine.

Michael Voris says we should all look like
beat up warriors at the end of each day

In this statement Voris rightly points out that our enemy is Satan, but then he follows this up with saying that God delights to "strive with the sons of men."  Voris has us nodding in agreement with the first part of the statement, and then without realizing it, we are suddenly agreeing with him on a complete contradiction.

[UPDATE:  FidesSpesCaritas and Christine in the combox below pointed out that I have misunderstood this statement from Voris that "As the Old testament says of God .. 'it is my delight to strive with the sons of men.' Imagine.", and I believe they are right.  I think Voris was trying to make a positive statement about God's relationship with man and was actually using a bad translation of Proverbs 8:31 which says, "my delights were to be with the children of men."  I was very confused by Voris' statement because it is very similar to Genesis 6:3 which says, "My Spirit shall not always strive with man", which would seem to contradict Voris.   But upon reflection, I think Voris did mean this in a positive light, and he means God wants to be with man and yes, it is absolutely amazing that God chooses to have a relationship with sinful and weak human beings.  I apologize for misunderstanding and mischaracterizing Michael Voris' statement here.]

Michael further expounds on what he sees as the Church's role:

Its role is to fight .. its charter to attack and tear down the kingdom of Satan .. the empire of lies and falsehood and heresies that so dominate the world today .. in short .. the mission of the Church and Her members is to slay dragons.

The great commission given to the church by Jesus Christ is found in Matthew 28:19-20:  "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."  Yes, we are to do battle with the forces of darkness, but where did Christ tell us to "attack and tear down the kingdom of Satan...to slay dragons"?  Is it our role to be like some great military hero, slashing and burning our way through the world?   Ephesians 6:12 says:  "This is not a wrestling match against a human opponent. We are wrestling with rulers, authorities, the powers who govern this world of darkness, and spiritual forces that control evil in the heavenly world."

In James 4:7 we are told, "Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you."  The most effective way to defeat Satan is not to go on the attack against all that we perceive to be wrong in others, but, as James the brother of Christ told us, to submit to the Will of God in our own personal lives.  We don't "attack and tear down" as much as we enlighten the world through the preaching of the Gospel.  That certainly does involve pointing out sin and evil in the world, but this must always be done with love and concern for the souls of others.  We are not told that we are the nuclear weapon of the world but rather, a light set on a hill.  A light illumines, it does not destroy.  Christ also called his followers the salt of the earth, salt being a preservative, not something which destroys.  As for any fighting that may be involved, Deuteronomy 20:4 says:  "For the Lord your God is he that goeth with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to save you."  Jesus defeated Satan through His Death on the Cross.  He is the one who fights.  Our job is to preach His Message.

And please, we most certainly should not be attacking and tearing down one another in the Church, and yet Michael Voris seems to take particular delight in doing just this.

An example of Michael Voris' delight in attacking others in the church is a Vortex episode he did in December entitled, "Trendy Catholics."  You can watch this episode here.  This episode is promoted as follows:  "The clock is ticking on the Church of Nice. It won't be long now."  He referenced an article in the Economist magazine which said that Traditional Catholicism is becoming more and more popular in the Church:

Traditional Catholicism is all the rage .. at least in England.  But that is the case all over the western world. It’s avant-garde .. trendy .. almost like a hipster to actually bow before God and receive His Body and Blood on your tongue.  It’s fashion forward for priests to be in cassocks and nuns in habits. Oh My. Imagine the shock all and horror bouncing off the walls of the Church of Nice. Unable to hold or inspire their own flagging parishes .. where are these other “nut job” Catholics coming from.

Voris describes the Church of Nice as follows:

the saccharine syrupy hand holding ultra-feminized altar girl protestant hymn singing social justice priest facing with his back to God staring at the people staring back at him Church – in short practically every parish in the western world.

Is this really what Our Lord wants us to do, to attack fellow believers?  I am also very concerned about the blanket statement Voris makes here:  "in short, practically every parish in the western world."  By making this statement Voris is, in effect, setting himself up as judge and juror over the entire contemporary Church.  Painting the entire Church with one broad brush stroke is prejudicial to say the least and, as can be seen, leads to very judgmental thinking.  If we really believe that "practically every parish in the western world" is in spiritual trouble, shouldn't we, with great humility and mindful of our own sinfulness, be reaching out to them with love and compassion and praying that they will turn from error instead of just gleefully pointing out how wrong they are?

Voris recently produced another Vortex episode that I felt was even more cutting against fellow Catholics.  This one is entitled, "Dead Branches."  You can watch this episode here.  Once again, he is attacking what he has labeled the "Church of Nice," this time telling us that they are all dead branches that need to be thrown out.

Take a good look around the Church these days .. look up and down the disastrous parish life that predominates the Catholic life on the ground. Take a look at the educational establishment .. universities and local religious ed departments. Closely examine the sprawling infrastructures and bureaucracies that permeate every diocese and archdiocese. Take a good long look at them all .. and then prepare to say goodbye. There is simply no way in 20 years .. most likely less that this sprawling behemoth is still going to be around. It has simply abandoned its mission of saving souls and making saints and as such .. the need for it no longer exists.

There can be no denying the truth of what he says about the spiritual condition of many parishes and dioceses.  But should we be rejoicing over the fact that those who are running these institutions are going to "get what they have coming" as Voris says here:

For a crowd so bent on social justice .. it’s actually good to see a little meted out to them.  Not good that the faith has been eviscerated, but that many who have done the eviscerating get to see their life’s work crumble around them.  And so it will go, with ever increasing pace and rapidity as the next few years roll along.

The leadership of these dioceses around the nation can fool themselves all they want that they have developed some new marketing plan or restructured evangelizing platform ..and give it all kinds of corporate sounding jingo names like parish “clusters” and new “collaboratives” .. neither of which by the way is a term from canon law .. but does sound very Madison Avenue .. go ahead and keep kidding yourselves. The old modernism is vanishing like the morning dew .. thank God. These people who have bought into this fake Catholicism and promote it until their dying breath have wreaked havoc on untold millions upon millions of souls .. betrayed Our Lord and are now receiving their just desserts.

And while it’s a pity that they made these choices .. it is NOT a pity that it has come to this. How can Our Blessed Lord continue to bless dead branches.  They must be cut off and thrown into the fire .. and that is exactly what is happening and frankly .. too bad it didn't happen sooner.

We absolutely do need to hold the Church hierarchy accountable for their actions.   Should we be rejoicing when they get their "just desserts?  Should we be saying "too bad it didn't happen sooner"?  Shouldn't we instead be praying that they will repent of any wrongdoing, and shouldn't we mourn the choices they made instead of applauding their destruction?  Voris would have us believe that the Church hierarchy is our enemy.  But St. Paul specifically tells us in Ephesians 6:12:  "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms."

Michael Voris comparing the hierarchy of the
church to dead branches and saying they must be burned up

It is most definitely not the job of the laity to label our bishops and priests as "dead branches" that "must be cut off and thrown into the fire."  How can the Church survive when we are attacking one another in this manner?

It is an interesting contrast to look at how our Lord treated his betrayer, Judas Iscariot.  He always knew Judas was going to betray him.  But that didn't stop Jesus from treating Judas just as he did all the other Apostles.  In fact, Christ even honored Judas by making him the treasurer, entrusting him with money.  At the last supper, Jesus washed Judas' feet and even gave him Communion with the other apostles.  All of this, we can be sure, was Jesus' way of attempting to draw Judas to repentance.  And when Judas finally got his "just desserts", did our Lord take joy in it?  Hardly.

Voris defends his statements with the following:

Think of all the human misery .. temporal and especially eternal that most assuredly would have been prevented if this demonic mischief and chicanery had been exposed and cleared away with sooner.

We should never refer to any human being as "dead branches" as Michael Voris has done.  That is the equivalent of condemning a person to hell.  The only one who can make that judgment is God.  Only God knows the state of a person's soul and what they are capable of.  We know that the greatest enemies of the Church can sometimes become our biggest saints, as in the case of St. Paul, who was actually killing Christians before he repented.  We need to be in prayer for the souls of those whom we think have gone off the track.

In this Vortex episode, Michael Voris actually makes the following statement about the hierarchy of the Catholic Church:

Too much of the establishment in the Church have turned to dead branches and the sooner they are cut off and become fuel for the fire .. the better for the rest of the vine.

David spares Saul's life
Credit\:  http://lavistachurchofchrist.org

Michael Voris is talking about priests and bishops - men ordained by the Holy Spirit - when he says they are dead branches who should be "cut off and become fuel for the fire."  Michael might do well to look at the story of David and Saul.  Saul was anointed the first king of Israel and was a total failure at it.  David was then chosen to replace him, and Saul reacted by trying to have David killed.  At one point David had a chance to kill his mortal enemy, Saul, and David was urged to do so by his men.  But David's answer to this was, "The Lord forbid that I should do such a thing to my master, the Lord’s anointed, or lay my hand on him; for he is the anointed of the Lord."

Our Catholic bishops and priests have been specially ordained by God.  We have no right in making any judgments about their souls and hoping for the day that "they are cut off and become fuel for the fire."  We certainly need to call them out when they are disobedient to the Church, but we must never, never rejoice in their destruction.

We live in very evil times when the Church is under attack.  And we undoubtedly have enemies inside the Church as well as outside.  But it is not our job to judge any one's soul and then to actually rejoice when they "get what they deserve."  Our Lord showed us how to treat our enemies in the very fact that he did not rejoice but mourned the fate of Judas, the one who betrayed him.

I supported Michael Voris and his organization for a long time.  And he does some good work.  But his penchant for attacking the hierarchy of the Church has really started to bother me. I have personally been guilty of this sin as well, and I truly repent of that  I hope Michael Voris will do the same.

Credit:  http://www.catholicprayercards.org

Try Not To Judge The Priesthood By The Priest

Alec Guinness in "The Prisoner"

I recently saw a truly great movie with Sir Alec Guinness (a Catholic convert) made in 1955 that, up to now, I never even knew existed.  It is called "The Prisoner",  about a Cardinal in an unnamed Communist country who is arrested by the government and charged with treason.  If you wish to watch the movie online, you can do so on Youtube.   This is a very powerful movie, and I recommend you take 90 minutes to watch it.

As Wikipedia says, "The Cardinal was based on Croatian cardinal Aloysius Stepinac, who was a victim of a show trial staged by the communist regime led by Josip Broz Tito[2]and on Hungarian cardinal József Mindszenty, who was also the victim of the communist-staged show trial, while the communist regime was fronted by Mátyás Rákosi and Árpád Szakasits."  In the movie, the Cardinal is arrested immediately upon completing a High Pontifical Mass.

Here is the trailer for the movie:

The Cardinal in the movie is also a famous war hero who fought against the Nazis in WWII.  As a loyal Prince of the Church, he is adamantly anti-Communist, and therefore a threat to the government who wants to discredit and then execute him.  But to do this, they must get him to confess to crimes he did not commit.  The person put in charge of interrogating the Cardinal is someone who had fought alongside the Cardinal in WWII and knows him to be a man of high moral values.  He realizes that the usual threats of physical torture and even death will not work, so he resorts to psychological torture by using sleep deprivation, solitary confinement and generally trying to confuse his mind.  He eventually succeeds in convincing the Cardinal that he did indeed betray the people and the government, and because the Cardinal is such a good and holy man, he readily admits to crimes that he believes he committed but in reality did not.  At the end of the movie is a scene in which a prison worker looks at him with great disappointment, and Alec Guinness tells him, "Try Not to Judge the Priesthood By The Priest."

I think we would all do well to take this advice.  The priesthood, instituted by Jesus Christ, is a sacred vocation charged with saving souls.  We would all be doomed to eternal damnation without the Catholic priesthood.   Who could hear our confessions and absolve us from the sin which damns our souls, who could change bread and wine into the the life-giving sacrament of the Eucharist?  Who could confirm us?  If how we spend eternity is the most important question in our lives, and I believe it is, Catholic priests are the most important and invaluable people on the earth because we cannot attain eternal life in heaven without them.

Just as there seems to be an attempt in our world to destroy everything that is good and right and holy, such as the family, there has been and continues to be a war to stamp out the Catholic priesthood which is so indispensable to the salvation of our souls.  This war against priests, and in effect against the Church, played out in full force in the January 27 edition of the New York Times, as seen in an editorial written by Frank Bruni concerning an upcoming book by Garry Wills.  Mr. Wills calls himself Catholic but yet constantly rails against the Pope and the Magesteruim of the Church.  Both the book and this editorial are nothing less than diabolical in tone, and could have easily been dictated by the devil himself.   The editorial is entitled "Catholicism's Curse."

Mr. Bruni starts by telling us that he and Mr. Wills have nothing against priests.  Mr. Bruni says he has met many good priests who, according to Mr. Bruni, are good in spite of, and not because of, the Catholic Church:

“I HAVE nothing against priests,” writes Garry Wills in his provocative new book, “Why Priests? A Failed Tradition,” and I’d like at the outset to say the same. During a career that has included no small number of formal interviews and informal conversations with them, I’ve met many I admire, men of genuine compassion and remarkable altruism, more dedicated to humanity than to any dogma or selective tradition.

You know there is a "but" coming, and here it is:

But while I have nothing against priests, I have quite a lot against an institution that has done a disservice to them and to the parishioners in whose interests they should toil. I refer to the Roman Catholic Church, specifically to its modern incarnation and current leaders, who have tucked priests into a cosseted caste above the flock, wrapped them in mysticism and prioritized their protection and reputations over the needs and sometimes even the anguish of the people in the pews. I have a problem, in other words, with the church’s arrogance, a thread that runs through Wills’s book, to be published next month; through fresh revelations of how assiduously a cardinal in Los Angeles worked to cover up child sexual abuse; and through the church’s attempts to silence dissenters, including an outspoken clergyman in Ireland who was recently back in the news.

Mr. Bruni would definitely not agree with the advice given to us by Sir Alec Guinness and in fact, Mr. Bruni believes we must judge the priesthood by the priest.  I wonder if he feels that way about other institutions.   What about pedophiles who have been caught in police departments, teachers, government officials, the Protestant ministry, the Hasidic community, all at much higher rates than among Catholic priests?  Shouldn't we be judging these institutions by the same standards Mr. Bruni wants us to use with the Catholic priesthood?  The fact is that pedophilia is found everywhere in our culture and it is a very sad fact that this includes the Catholic Church, as Mr. Bruni does not hesitate to point out, and yes, bishops did mishandle many of these cases:

LET’S start with Los Angeles. Last week, as a result of lawsuits filed against the archdiocese of Los Angeles by hundreds of victims of sexual abuse by priests, internal church personnel files were made public. They showed that Cardinal Roger M. Mahony’s impulse, when confronted with priests who had molested children, was to hush it up and keep law enforcement officials at bay. While responses like this by Roman Catholic bishops and cardinals have been extensively chronicled and are no longer shocking, they remain infuriating. At one point Cardinal Mahony instructed a priest whom he’d dispatched to New Mexico for counseling not to return to California, lest he risk being criminally prosecuted. That sort of shielding of priests from accountability allowed them, in many cases across the United States, to continue their abusive behavior and claim more young victims.

Mr. Bruni continues on with a description of Cardinal Mahony's handling of abusive priests and then launches into an attack on the Vatican:

Church officials and defenders note that Cardinal Mahony’s gravest misdeeds occurred in the 1980s, before church leaders were properly educated about recidivism among pedophiles and before the dimensions of the child sexual abuse crisis in the church became clear. They point out that the church’s response improved over time. That’s true, but what hasn’t changed is the church’s hubris. This hubris abetted the crisis: the particular sway that abusers held over their victims and the special trust they received from those children’s parents were tied into the church’s presentation of priests as paragons.

And this hubris also survives the crisis, manifest in the way that the Vatican, a gilded enclave so far removed and so frequently out of step with the rest of the world, clamps down on Catholics who challenge its rituals and rules. Much of what these dissenters raise questions about — the all-male priesthood, for example, or the commitment to celibacy that priests are required to make — aren’t indisputable edicts from God. They’re inventions of the mortals who took charge of the faith.

I'm assuming Mr. Bruni would say it was hubris that caused Our Lord to choose an all-male priesthood in the Apostles.  Mr. Bruni also seems to reject Matthew 16:19 in which Our Lord said to St. Peter, our first Pope, "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."  No doubt Mr. Bruni would see this as the epitome of hubris and an "invention of mortals".

As an example of the hubris of the Catholic Church, Mr. Bruni tells us about the "injustice", as he sees it, that has been done to an Irish priest who is in active rebellion against the Magesterium of the Church:

And yet with imperious regularity, Vatican officials issue their relished condemnations. These officials are reliably riled by nuns, a favorite target of their wrath. And they’ve been none too pleased with an Irish priest, the Rev. Tony Flannery, 66, who was suspended from his ministry by the Vatican last year and informed, he recently said, that he could return to it on the condition that he publicly express his endorsement of a range of official positions that he had questioned, including the exclusion of women from the priesthood. Last Sunday he broke a long silence to say that the Vatican had threatened him with excommunication and to call its approach toward him “reminiscent of the Inquisition.”

Among the Vatican’s issues with him was his stated belief in a 2010 article that the priesthood, rather than originating with Jesus and a specially selected group of followers, was selfishly created later by a “privileged group within the community who had abrogated power and authority to themselves.”

Mr. Bruni now presents us with the fiction of Garry Wills, who asserts in his new book that the priesthood was not given to us by Jesus Christ, but an invention by mere mortals, and that the priesthood was actually opposed in the early Church. Mr. Bruni also feels that the Church needs to have a more democratic government:

That may sound like an extreme assertion, but the new book by Wills, a Pulitzer Prize winner who has written extensively about Christianity and the church, says that at the start, Christianity not only didn’t have priests but opposed them. The priesthood was a subsequent tweak, and the same goes for the all-male, celibate nature of the Roman Catholic clergy and the autocratic hierarchy that this clergy inhabits, an unresponsive government whose subjects — the laity — have limited say.

Mr. Bruni and Mr. Wills now completely toss out Vatican I, which said that the teachings of the Magesterium, which is guided by the Holy Spirit, are infallible:

“It can’t admit to error, the church hierarchy,” Wills told me on the phone on Thursday. “Any challenge to their prerogative is, in their eyes, a challenge to God. You can’t be any more arrogant than that.” 

Mr. Wills makes an outright attack upon the priesthood and Mr. Bruni agrees, trying to tell us that the abuse crisis proves that the Church and the world would be much better off without the Catholic priesthood:

“We Catholics were taught not only that we must have priests but that they must be the right kind of priests,” he writes in the book, which argues that priests aren’t ultimately necessary. “What we were supposed to accept is that all priesthoods are invalid ones except the Roman Catholic.”

That’s an awfully puffed-up position, and there’s a corresponding haughtiness in the fact that bishops can assign priests to parishes without any real obligation to get input or feedback from the parishioners those priests serve. This way of doing business in fact enabled church leaders to shuttle priests accused of molestation around, keeping them one step ahead of their crimes.

It has also helped to turn many Catholics away from the church, while prompting others to regard its leaders as ornamental and somewhat irrelevant distractions. They cherish the essence and beauty of their religion. They just can’t abide the arrogance of many of its appointed caretakers.

The arguments made in Mr. Bruni's editorial and Mr. Wills's book about the Catholic priesthood and the teachings of the Catholic Church are not only specious, but they are dangerous to our souls.  This is not to say that there are not problems within the church.  The church is filled with sinners.  We all have fallen natures and live in a fallen world.  We need spiritual guidance and correction, and we get it all the time from the Magesterium.  Certainly if the priests and bishops who now stand accused had put themselves entirely in line with the teachings of the Church, the abuse crisis would have never happened.

The Church is not the cause of the crisis.  It was and is caused by those who refuse to abide by the divinely inspired teachings of the Church.  To throw out the priesthood is truly to throw out the baby with the bathwater.  It is to quite literally throw away our eternal salvation.

We all must be very careful when we speak against priests.  From Catholictradition.org:

IN his epistle to the Christians of Smyrna, St. Ignatius, Martyr, says that the priesthood is the most sublime of all created dignities: "The apex of dignities is the priesthood." St. Ephrem calls it an infinite dignity: "The priesthood is an astounding miracle, great, immense, and infinite." St. John Chrysostom says, that though its functions are performed on earth, the priesthood should be numbered among the things of Heaven."

According to Cassian, the priest of God is exalted above all earthly sovereignties, and above all celestial heights-----he is inferior only to God. Innocent III says that the priest is placed between God and man; inferior to God, but superior to man. St. Denis calls the priest a Divine man. Hence he has called the priesthood a Divine dignity. In fine, St. Ephrem says that the gift of the sacerdotal dignity surpasses all understanding.

For us it is enough to know, that Jesus Christ has said that we should treat his priests as we would his own person: "He that heareth you, heareth Me; he that despiseth you, despiseth Me." Hence St. John Chrysostom says, that "he who honors a priest, honors Christ, and he who insults a priest, insults Christ." Through respect for the sacerdotal dignity, St. Mary of Oignies used to kiss the ground on which a priest had walked.

St. Francis

Yes, we have a troubled priesthood in many ways.  But have we contributed to it by not honoring our priests as they deserve?  They are here as representatives of Jesus Christ.  As quoted above and taken from Luke 10:16, Jesus Christ said:  "He that heareth you, heareth Me; he that despiseth you, despiseth Me."  We need to look beyond the priest as a man and see our Lord himself.  We need to keep in mind that the priest is here to save our souls.  If we were on a lifeboat in the middle of an ocean and that lifeboat was our means of salvation, we would treat it with great respect.  When our priests fall, it is not our job to condemn them. It is our job to pray for them, just as St. Francis did.  From catholic.org:

Francis was not a reformer; he preached about returning to God and obedience to the Church. Francis must have known about the decay in the Church, but he always showed the Church and its people his utmost respect. When someone told him of a priest living openly with a woman and asked him if that meant the Mass was polluted, Francis went to the priest, knelt before him, and kissed his hands -- because those hands had held God.

Try not to judge the priesthood by the priest. 

Credit:  http://pinterest.com/pin/436356651365237654/

Have You Been To Calvary Lately?

This Friday, January 25, is the Annual March for Life in Washington, D.C.  This is an important event despite the fact that it will receive next to no media coverage.  It needs to be done for the same reason we observe the anniversaries of 9/11 and Pearl Harbor and remember the Holocaust victims from WWII.  We do this to honor the victims, and in the case of abortion, we also do this to give a voice to the tens of millions of babies who had no one to speak for them and to remind the rest of the world that we are in this fight and not going away until the murder of unborn babies is recognized as such and once again declared a crime against humanity.

I have gone on this march, and it is good to be surrounded by hundreds of thousands of people who are passionately pro life and not afraid to say so.  Although it is not officially a Catholic event, the overwhelming majority of people who attend this march are Catholic.  A large number of the people are also under 30, and as can always be expected when young people get together, there is a bit of a party atmosphere involved.  That does not take away from the fact that those kids are all there as survivors of  Roe v. Wade.

Anyone under the age of 40 needs to realize that your parents could have legally killed you with the blessings of the state at any time prior to your birth, and you are as much of a survivor as anyone who has lived through a war.  At least 55 million of your potential brothers, sisters, husbands, wives and best friends were murdered.   The number is probably much higher than that because abortion statistics are usually under reported, as National Review tells us:

Pro-life activists have always been disappointed that the federal government does not have stronger reporting requirements for abortion statistics. The data from the CDC are far from perfect. Some states, most notably California, do not provide any data. Other states fail to provide complete information. That having been said, the CDC is the only source for annual abortion data from the United States.

As important as the Washington, D.C. March for Life is, it is not the front line in the war against abortion.  The real front line is right in your own town, and maybe right in your neighborhood.  It is the abortion mills which we so blithely walk by with little or no thought of the horrors which are occurring on the other side of the walls.  There is no party atmosphere when you go to an abortion clinic.  You will stand there not with hundreds of thousands, but most likely with only a handful of people at a place of incredible evil and suffering, and the people you are there to help will often look at you with pure hate and say vile things to you.  You will most definitely get a taste of the cursings and persecution that our Lord suffered at Calvary.

Credit:  aleteia.org

Msgr. Philip Reilly, often referred to as the Apostle of Life, has completely dedicated his life to fighting abortion.  He has stood outside praying and counseling in front of abortion clinics day after day for over 20 years.  He started here in Brooklyn and maintains his residence here.  But he has traveled extensively to set up pro life groups around the United States and in countries around the world.  I have heard him speak and prayed with him outside of abortion clinics.  One thing he has told us that has always stuck with me is that praying in front of an abortion clinic is the same as going to Calvary.  Abortions are the murder of innocent life, and there was never a more innocent life than the One who died on Calvary for our sins.

From Msgr. Reilly's website:

The Helpers of God's Precious Infants are a group of people committed to maintaining a loving and prayerful presence outside of the abortion mills, where God's children are put to death. We unite ourselves with these victims in solidarity with their pain, as they are put to death at this modern day Calvary. We pray in reparation for the injustice being performed on their tiny bodies. Just as Mary and John lovingly stood and prayed beneath Jesus' Cross as he died, we wish to remain with these children in the hour that they were crucified.

We pray to obtain God's mercy for the abortionist and his staff who do the killing. The message of the Helpers of God's Precious Infants to the abortionist and all who help him to kill God's children is that, though we love them, we will never accept what they do.

We plead with our voices for the lives of the babies being carried in by the pregnant women who have scheduled appointments with the abortionist that day. We ask each mother to change her mind. We reach out to her with the love of Christ; we do not judge nor condemn her for what she is planning to do. We simply promise her support and assistance if she should change her mind, and prayers for her healing and conversion if she should proceed with the killing of her child.

Most of all, we love the unborn children who will be brought there that day. These children have been rejected by their parents, and are doomed to die. The only human love they may ever encounter in their short lives may be from those of us standing outside.

It's great if you are able to attend the March for Life in Washington, D.C.  But the real battle is right in your hometown.  If at all possible, that is where we need to be, offering our prayers on behalf of the innocent babies and also praying for mercy to be shown to their parents and to all who are involved in the abortions, that they will realize the gravity of their sin and come to repentance.

From a poster offered on Msgr. Reilly's website entitled, "Calvary Today!" :

-- we may not be able to save their lives, but can we not plead on their behalf? And should they die, as usually happens (God forgive us!) let us lift up our hearts to God Almighty on their behalf ... it will be the only human love they will know on this earth ...

Here is a video from Msgr. Reilly who explains what it means to stand in front of an abortuary and how it mirrors our Blessed Mother standing at the foot of the Cross:

Is This What Dr. King Died For?

He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.

Martin Luther King, Jr. 

On April 4, 1968,  I was watching "The Flying Nun" on TV when the show was interrupted with a news bulletin that Martin Luther King, Jr. had been shot.  Even at my young age, I was stunned.  There was no news as to whether Dr. King was dead or alive at that time.  A short time later the show was again interrupted to report that Dr. King was dead.

Even though I was only 12 years old I, like most of the rest of America, was in complete shock.  I had just seen him on the news earlier that evening, talking about having seen the promised land and saying he might not get there with us.  I remember my mother saying he was nothing more than a trouble maker, the feeling of many people in America at that time.  Here is a video of the end of the speech Dr. King gave the night before he was shot and excerpts of which I saw on the evening news shortly before he was killed:

Martin Luther King, Jr. was only 39 years old when he was murdered.  There had been several attempts on his life up to that point, and he knew that it was only a matter of time before he paid the ultimate price in his quest for freedom and equality in America.  But that did not stop him in his crusade to bring equality for all people in America.  As he himself said, "A man who won't die for something is not fit to live."

There was tremendous inequality in America at that time.  We remember the riots that occurred when they tried to integrate schools in the South.  We remember seeing the water fountains with signs of "Whites Only" or "Colored Only."  We saw those brave young black men and women who sat at the segregated Woolworth's luncheon counter.

This kind of prejudice was not just in the South.  I was talking to a black man who grew up in New York City in the 30's and 40's, and he told me that his out-of-town relatives would always have to stay with his family because blacks were not allowed in New York City hotels.  He told me of the prejudice he encountered in the military when he, as a black man, had to keep his head down at all times and was not allowed to look white officers in the eye, and that black officers were never allowed to command white troops.  Ironically, he told me that the country in which he experienced the least amount of racial persecution was Germany.

We now celebrate the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. and honor him for being a leader in courageously helping to bring equality and justice to America.  The racial discrimination seen in America at the time of  Dr. King has truly become a part of our history.  Doors have been opened to many that at one time could not have been imagined.  One of the richest women in the world is Oprah Winfrey, who started life as a dirt poor little black girl born during the civil rights era.  Colin Powell, a black man born in New York City in the 1930's, has reached the pinnacle of success as a military general and has served in the administrations of three US Presidents, and had he chosen, would have been a formidable presidential candidate.  There is Condoleeza Rice, who was born in Birmingham, Alabama and lived through the civil rights movement as a little girl, and who has achieved ultimate success in her field, serving as Secretary of State and is a professor at Stanford University, among other prestigious positions.  She is also an accomplished pianist and dancer.  Many of our greatest and wealthiest entertainers and sports heroes are African American.  And of course, we now have an African American President of the United States.

All of this is wonderful, but what is the reality of the average African American in the United States?

The African American family has been decimated since the 1960's when Dr. King was murdered.  In 1965, 24% of black infants were born to unmarried mothers.  As of November 2010, the out of wedlock rate was 72%.  No society can survive without the family as the foundational building block, and this is exactly what we are seeing in the Black Community.

Right now according to government statistics, the unemployment rate among blacks, 14%, is almost double that of the overall unemployment rate.  The rate is much worse among young black men, at 28.6% according to another government study.

Crime is much higher in black communities than most white communities.  As the Wall Street Journal told us:

Overall, more than half the nation's homicide victims are African-American, though blacks make up only 13% of the population. Of those black murder victims, 85% were men, mostly young men.

Drug use, alcoholism, prostitution and AIDS are all dramatically higher in the Black community.  A 2006 New York Times article reported this:

In the decade since effective drug treatments for AIDS have slashed death rates across the country, black New Yorkers continue to fall ill and die at startling rates, according to new data from the city health department.

Today, one in five black men in New York City between 40 and 49 has H.I.V. or AIDS. Black women, meanwhile, account for 34 percent of new AIDS cases, up from 12 percent 20 years ago.

There is an even more evil form of racism being perpetrated in the Black Community, and that is abortion.  At the same time as we are honoring Dr. King, we are also commemorating what I consider to be the darkest day in American history, and maybe in all of world history:  the legalization of the murder of our unborn children.  I regularly pray in front of abortion clinics, and one thing I have noted is that 90% to 95% of the women going into those clinics are African American.  In New York City, there are 3 abortions for every 2 live births in the African American community.  That is a 60% abortion rate.  A website called blackgenocide.org displays the following chart showing the number of African Americans killed by abortion since it was legalized in 1973:

According to this website:

Minority women constitute only about 13% of the female population (age 15-44) in the United States, but they underwent approximately 36% of the abortions.

According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, black women are more than 5 times as likely as white women to have an abortion

On average, 1,876 black babies are aborted every day in the United States.

One African American woman I know who was born in the 1960's told me that she and every one of her  female friends and family in her community have had at least one abortion, and many have had multiple abortions.  This is a holocaust such as we have never seen before.

It is no accident that the Black community seems to be targeted.

From Blackgenocide.org:

Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion provider in America. 78% of their clinics are in minority communities. Blacks make up 12% of the population, but 35% of the abortions in America. Are we being targeted? Isn't that genocide? We are the only minority in America that is on the decline in population. If the current trend continues, by 2038 the black vote will be insignificant. Did you know that the founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger, was a devout racist who created the Negro Project designed to sterilize unknowing black women and others she deemed as undesirables of society? The founder of Planned Parenthood said, "Colored people are like human weeds and are to be exterminated." Is her vision being fulfilled today?

It pains me greatly to say this, but despite the tremendous sacrifices made by Martin Luther King, Jr. and others in the civil rights movement, racism has not disappeared from our society. The segregated water fountains and lunch counters are gone, and black people no longer have to come and go by the back door in public buildings. But a far worse racism has taken the place of these injustices, in which black people and other minorities are being specifically targeted and destroyed in numbers that not even the Ku Klux Klan could have imagined. And although the minority communities are suffering in greater numbers, this destruction has spread to all parts of society.

The Black Community, along with all the rest of our nation and world, has been sold a bill of goods. We have been told that we can live our lives any way we want to in direct defiance to the law of God, and that will lead us to greater happiness and fulfillment.

We have seen just the opposite.

"The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live. Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men."―Martin Luther King, Jr.

The answer all comes down to the fact that we have pushed God out of our culture and replaced Him with hedonism, in which our greatest goal is self satisfaction.  People are willing to kill the unborn merely because their child is "inconvenient."  And we do so because not only have we been told that there is there nothing wrong with this, but it is actually a good thing because it frees us to do all the things we want and need to do to "better" ourselves.

“The end of life is not to be happy, nor to achieve pleasure and avoid pain, but to do the will of God, come what may.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

Dr. King once said, “I agree with Dante, that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in a period of moral crisis, maintain their neutrality."  We are in a moral crisis in our country the likes of which we have never seen, in which we are killing our children by the millions because we have rejected God.  Dr. King also said, "The greatest purveyor of violence in the world : My own Government, I can not be Silent."  This is more true than it has ever been, with our government now using taxpayer dollars to fund the killing of our own children.

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”― Martin Luther King Jr.

The greatest way in which we can honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who gave his life to achieve equality for all, is to speak out on behalf of those who have no voice and who are the most vulnerable among us, and that is first and foremost, the unborn.  We, too, must stand up to our own government, just as Dr. King did 50 years ago.

"Never, never be afraid to do what's right, especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake. Society's punishments are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our soul when we look the other way.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

Every child lost through abortion steals a part of our souls.  No nation can survive this kind of evil.  It is our duty as children of God to fight against this greatest of evil.  Martin Luther King, Jr. did not die so that children of any color could be legally killed.

“It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one destiny, affects all indirectly.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, told us, "No greater love is this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."  We saw that love in Dr. King, and we cannot truly honor his legacy unless we too are willing to lay down our lives for what is right and just.

“You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be. And one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls you to stand up for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid…. You refuse to do it because you want to live longer…. You’re afraid that you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you’re afraid that somebody will stab you, or shoot at you or bomb your house; so you refuse to take the stand.

Well, you may go on and live until you are 90, but you’re just as dead at 38 as you would be at 90. And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

Credit;  globalexchange.org

Gov. Andrew Cuomo Goes Beyond Roe v. Wade

We are coming up on the 40th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court case that legalized the killing of our unborn children in the United States.  I will always remember reading the headline in the paper in January 1973 in total unbelief.  I was just a silly 17 year girl, but even I knew something was seriously wrong with this decision.  I just couldn't believe that we were now going to kill our children.

It is 40 years later, and despite the concerted efforts of many thousands of people to change this barbaric law, our children continue to die by the thousands everyday in the killing fields known as abortion clinics.  Tom Hoopes of CatholicVote.org recently wrote a post entitled, "Do We Seriously Not Realize That We Are Winning?"  

The Jan. 14 cover of Time Magazine states, “40 Years Ago, Abortion-rights Activists won an Epic Victory With Roe v. Wade. They’ve Been Losing Ever Since. “

Of course Time magazine is right. It is axiomatic, it is the story of our times, it is the thing every pro-lifer knows: We’re winning this battle.

I can’t understand why colleagues of mine are doubting this.

Mr. Hoopes shows as his proof the fact that 51% of Americans call themselves "pro life",  that "3 in 5 respondents [in a Gallup poll] want abortion to be illiegal in 'all' or most circumstances'", and

Seven in 10 support 24-hour waiting periods. More than 7 in 10 want parental consent. Three in 5 support partial-birth aboriton bans. Nearly 9 out of 10 want patients told the risks of abortion — and nearly 9 out of 10 want patients informed about abortion alternatives.

These are all very good things, but the fact remains that the children are continuing to die.  We have statistics for surgical abortions, which were approximately 1.2 million in the United States in 2012.  We have no statistics on the number of chemical abortions, which are no doubt in the millions.  Most women who use birth control have no idea that their birth control is not preventing pregnancy but is actually aborting fertilized eggs.

And maybe Mr.  Hoopes should take a look at this:

As long as birth control is accepted by society, abortions will continue.  And it will only get worse, as we are now seeing here in New York State.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo, catholic Governor of New York, is proposing a law called the "Reproductive Health Care Act."  As Chris Slattery, a prominent pro life leader here in New York says, this law is actually worse than Roe v. Wade.  This act by Governor Cuomo seems to fly in the face of everything Tom Hoopes wrote in his post. From the National Catholic Register:

ALBANY, N.Y. — New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is flexing his political muscle to give abortion advocates their biggest state victory in 40 years since Roe v. Wade: a sweeping expansion of abortion law that, if enforced, would put Catholic hospitals and many state-funded ministries out of business.

Cuomo’s approval ratings have topped 70% for six straight months, and, with just two years in office, he has already pushed through controversial same-sex “marriage” legislation and the most restrictive gun-control law in the nation.

Credit:  kevinwebb22.com

Cuomo, who is Catholic, now is setting his sights on succeeding where governors for the past six years have failed: passing the proposed Reproductive Health Care Act.

But Cuomo has included the act as part of his 10-point “women’s equality” agenda, which includes a raise in the minimum wage, tougher anti-housing discrimination laws and measures against domestic violence and sex-trafficking.

Catholic bishops in New York’s Catholic Conference and pro-life groups are raising the alarm that Cuomo’s proposals are both “radical” and “dangerous” to unborn children, women and religious freedom.

“Gov. Cuomo’s bill elevates abortion to a fundamental right and says New York state can’t discriminate on abortion in benefits or services or anything else it provides,” said Kathleen Gallagher, the conference’s director of pro-life activities.

Cuomo’s legislation, she said, would make illegal abortion restrictions, such as parental-notification laws, informed-consent laws, restrictions on taxpayer funding of abortion and abortion bans of any kind.

The law will allow licensed medical professionals other than a physician to perform first-trimester abortions.  

The Democratic governor announced in his Jan. 9 State of the State address that he would expand legal abortion as part of a comprehensive women’s-equality bill, declaring three times, “It’s her body, her choice” to thunderous applause.

“Governor Cuomo vociferously declared that women’s equality, safety and reproductive rights will be a priority for New York state in 2013,” Andrea Miller, president of NARAL Pro-Choice New York, confirmed in a press release. Miller said the last election results showed New Yorkers recognized that without a right to abortion a woman “cannot participate fully in society.”

Cuomo’s bill removes criminal penalties for third-trimester abortions after 24 weeks by adding a broad health exception. Current state law allows such late-term abortions if there is a danger to the mother’s life.

Chris Slattery, director of the Expectant Mother Care (EMC) pregnancy centers in New York City, said the new law will make New York City the late-term abortion capital of the world.

“It’s going to open up the third-trimester market,” Slattery said. “It’s going to be huge, and people all over the world, not just out of state, are going to be coming to New York to have and perform these abortions.”

Late-term abortions generally cost more than $2,000.

“It’s the fight of the pro-life movement’s life in New York,” Slattery said. “This is worse than Roe v. Wade itself, and everyone needs to focus on defeating this bill.”

The Guttmacher Institute’s New York state abortion data showed that 33% of New York pregnancies end in abortion — nearly twice the national rate of 19%. Only 53% of New York pregnancies resulted in live births, with the remaining 14% ending with miscarriage.

New York City itself has an average abortion rate of 41%, with some areas as high as 67%, according to New York Health Department data gathered by the Chiaroscuro Foundation.

A 2011 poll, conducted for the Chiaroscuro Foundation by McLaughlin and Associates, found 64% of New Yorkers — including 57% of women identifying as “pro-choice” — believe New York City’s abortion rate is too high. 74% believe the overall 60% abortion rate among minorities is too high.

The poll also found 69% of New Yorkers support informed-consent laws, 59% support mandating parental consent for minors seeking abortion, and 51% support having a 24-hour waiting period for abortion.  [Despite what Mr. Hoopes wrote in his article, the wishes of the people have no effect on the actual laws in our country.]

Cuomo’s legislation is expected to pass the Democratic-controlled Assembly, but pro-life advocates are focusing on the Senate, which Republicans control in a coalition with six independent Democrats.

Pro-life state Sen. Ruben Diaz Sr., D-Bronx, predicts the abortion battle will happen in the next few weeks and not toward the end of the legislative session in June. He said pro-life prospects look grim if the Reproductive Health Care Act comes up for a vote.

“I’m the only solid pro-life vote among the Democrats,” he said. “But if the Republicans allow this to come to the floor, then it is a done deal.”

Diaz expressed doubts that Majority Leader Dean Skelos, R-Rockville Centre, would keep the 30-member GOP caucus in line and predicted that one or two Republicans would join 32 Democrat senators to vote for the bill — a replay of voting patterns that resulted in the legalization of same-sex “marriage” in 2011.

Under a power-sharing agreement, Skelos and state Sen. Jeff Klein, D-Bronx, alternate leadership of the Senate every week.

“The week in which Sen. Jeff Klein becomes leader of the chamber — that week he will bring the bill to the floor,” Diaz said.

Diaz said he had no hope the bill could be stopped in the Senate without personal lobbying from Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York.

In a Jan. 9 letter to Cuomo, Cardinal Dolan forcefully denounced the governor’s push for increased access to abortion.

Cardinal Dolan and Governor Cuomo

“Dolan has a very powerful voice in the state,” said Diaz. “I’m hoping he comes to Albany now and lobbies — and lobbies hard. I think he’s the only hope we have to convince people to not bring this bill to the floor.”

Gallagher warned that the state bill has no conscience protections for religious institutions and that the New York Catholic Conference’s legal analysts fear the state could use the law to shut down any Catholic institution (including Catholic hospitals, Catholic charities and schools) that gets state licensing or funding.

“State regulators, such as the state health department or state insurance department, could say, ‘We cannot give you that license to operate’ or ‘We cannot give you that funding’ because our pro-life mission means we’re discriminating against a woman’s fundamental right to an abortion,” Gallagher said.

Bishop William Murphy confirmed that the Diocese of Rockville Centre is home to six hospitals on Long Island that could be crippled if the state simply withheld Medicaid dollars. The clash would be inevitable, because Catholic hospitals will neither perform nor refer people for abortions under any circumstances.

“It is another blow against a pro-life position, making that position officially ‘unacceptable’ or ‘bigoted’ or ‘intolerant,’” Bishop Murphy said, adding that the situation was “a very strange fruit in our society, where the majority of Americans, however they define it, call themselves pro-life.”

If the bill expanding access to abortion is passed, pro-life medical professionals could also find their practices at risk.

“All the legal mechanisms are in place so that doctors are forced to abandon their practices,” said Dr. Katherine Lammers, a Catholic obstetrician-gynecologist in Rochester, who has delivered 4,000 babies in her 25-year career. Lammers’ practice does not perform or refer for abortions.

She noted that the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists published an ethical memo in 2008 that directed doctors to provide abortion referrals if they are unable to perform the procedure.

“So it could happen this way: ACOG could say that this doctor is violating Ethical Bulletin 899. They could take your board certification away for ethical violations. The state board could then say, ‘This doctor is not medically licensed.’ So, theoretically, a doctor could be forced out of her business,” Lammers said.

The New York State Catholic Conference has scheduled a March 20 “Catholics at the Capitol” rally to highlight the Catholic Church’s top legislative priorities.

The Legislature has until June, the end of its session, to pass Cuomo’s legislation, but it could be brought to the floor of the legislative body before then.

Gallagher said the state’s pro-life coalition is making a push to gather support through social media. On Jan.15 pro-life advocates launched a “New Yorkers for Life” Facebook page and a Twitter account.

“We Catholic bishops will do our best to inform our people and rally Catholic and non-Catholic alike to express a preference for laws that safeguard women and children,” Bishop Murphy said. “A society can flourish only when it keeps before its eyes that God who creates and sustains it.”

Peter Jesserer Smith writes from Rochester, New York.

"Gotcha" Catholicism

Last summer I did a post about a same sex wedding announcement I saw in the New York Times, not at all unusual for that paper.  What was unusual was that it stated that "a Roman Catholic Priest assisted at the wedding, " Through Google, I figured out that there was a priest in Connecticut  by the same name as that in the announcement.  I immediately emailed both the priest and his bishop, and I also immediately posted about it on my blog without confirmation that I had the correct priest.  It turned out that I did have the correct priest, and a week or so later the bishop in that area formally reprimanded the priest who promised never to do this again.  Neither the priest nor the bishop ever answered my emails.

Even though I turned out to be correct, I should have waited until everything was confirmed and given the bishop time to act as he saw fit before I started making any kind of public accusations.  The reason I'm writing about this is because it is a prime example of how the laity should not act towards the clergy in the Catholic Church.  I have been pretty harsh at times on the clergy, and I would like to do a mea culpa right here and now in that regard.

Certainly when we see priests and bishops, or any member of the Church acting in a way that is contrary to Church teaching, we need to do something about it.  We should never stand idly by when we know someone is acting in a scandalous way and involved in serious sin.   But is the proper response to immediately take it to the Internet and announce it to the world?

The advice given to us directly by our Lord in regard to dealing with scandal can be found in Matthew 18:15-17:

If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother. But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that BY THE MOUTH OF TWO OR THREE WITNESSES EVERY FACT MAY BE CONFIRMED. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.

Our first concern should always be for the soul of the one involved in the sin, to try to bring him (or her) to repentance, and secondly to avoid scandal so as not to put other souls in danger.  As Jesus Himself told us, the matter should be kept as quiet as possible unless and until the one involved refuses to repent.  Then, and only then, should it be made public, and it should only be made public if it is necessary to mitigate public scandal, such as the priest assisting in a same sex wedding.  Even then, everything we do should be aimed at leading the person to repentance.  We should never do anything that unnecessarily humiliates or demeans in an any way.  We should never play "Gotcha!" games with people's souls as I did with the priest in Connecticut when I immediately jumped on him without knowing anything other than what I read in the Times, and not even sure that I had the correct priest.

I Corinthians 16:14 says, "Let all that you do be done in love."  Since love means wanting what is best for the other, the ideal is that everything we say and do in our interactions with others should all be with the thought of how my actions will  help them find the way to Christ and eternal life.  I fall far short of this ideal as I believe most people do.  Far too often I react to people out of a sense of injustice or hurt feelings, or thinking about "what's in it for me", and scariest of all, I react out of pride, feeling superior to others.

GK, Chesterton, one of the wisest men of the 20th Century, said this:

What embitters the world is not excess of criticism, but an absence of self-criticism.

Think about it.

Credit:  mycrazylifeasanavywife.blogspot.com