Obamapocalypse Now

Obamapocalypse Now

Ron Criss
November 7, 2012

Let the Obamapocalypse begin!

What happened yesterday?

Despite higher unemployment than when he came into office and lower job growth than during the Depression, the American people re-elected Barack Obama to be their president for a second term. In doing so, knowingly or unknowingly, they chose socialism, Obama phones, food Stamps, and big government statism over capitalism, personal responsibility and limited government. They irresponsibly mortgaged their children’s futures by putting their seal of approval on the most irresponsible spending and greatest debt in history.

They, including 52% of Catholic voters, chose Mammon and Molech to be their gods. For their faith they chose material things, irresponsibility, sexual promiscuity and the murder by abortion of the children who naturally result from their immorality. They chose repression of religious liberty and persecution of the Catholic Church through the Obama regime’s HHS Mandate.

How were the American people so gullible?

I blame the public education establishment, the teachers’ unions which fought for lower standards and against performance-based pay. That leveled the playing field to the lowest common denominator in the name of a false equality. That never taught us or our children to reason. That made them willing sheep of the establishment. That created a naïve and gullible people ill equipped to appreciate liberty or even to comprehend the reality of their situation.

I blame the media, liberal lapdogs and servants of the President and the Left. No longer objective journalists, they have become little more than the propaganda arm of the liberal establishment, hiding Obama’s failures and faults, and lying to create a false impression of his opponents.

As FOX News columnist Rich Noyes noted the media was on the lookout for supposed gaffes by Romney, often intentionally misrepresenting his words and intentionally taking them out of context to create the worst impression. They falsely contradicted Romney and Ryan, when their facts were correct. Biased liberal debate moderators gave Obama and Biden more time to speak, interrupted Romney and Ryan when they were trying to speak and, most infamously, in the case of CNN’s Candy Crowley, interrupted to support Obama’s lie that he called Benghazi a terrorist attack the next day in the Rose Garden.

In the weeks before the election the media conducted a virtual blackout of reporting on the debacle at Benghazi, a failure of such proportions that it would have toppled a Republican president. And they would have seen to it! Finally they buried the news of Obama’s economic failure and the last unemployment report before the election which showed unemployment to be actually higher than when he came into office, misrepresenting a job growth below that of the Depression as a miraculous and strong recovery. The ignorance, concupiscence, gullibility and passivity of the majority ensured that they would never do the research necessary to discover and understand the truth.

And finally I blame the American bishops and priests who failed (with few and notable exceptions) to criticize Obama and heretical Catholics politicians like Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi and Katherine Sabelius, giving the impression that Catholics could in good conscience hold the view that abortion on demand is just and moral. Worst of all was Bishop Dolan, who blessed the Democrat National Convention and hobnobbed with Obama at the Al Smith Dinner. His message, that abortion and suppression of Catholic religious freedom by the administration were not big enough deals to interfere with being “civil” was sent out to Catholics loud and clear! All this resulted in the fact that Obama captured the cafeteria Catholic vote by 52% to Romney’s 45%.  And, sadly, I must bewail the fact that Pope Benedict himself was conspicuously silent on the election, though he made vague and inexplicit remarks about “religious freedom” that failed to reach the majority of the Catholic Americans.

So does God have a message for us in the midst of all this political disappoint and despair?

I believe it is this:

Psalm 117:8-9
Better trust the Lord than rely on the help of man; better trust the Lord than rely on the word of princes.

Our error was to trust the American people to do the right and constructive thing. We put our trust in the American people and politicians to save our nation. We failed to realize that a majority of Americans, including Catholics, are amoral adult children, more concerned about their own immediate peace and security than their children’s future or the rights of religious believers.  
We need the Catholic Church and her sacraments. It was not a matter of Catholic  doctrines being untrue; indeed they represent the fullness of the truth, but rather it was the failure of the bishops to enforce them. Heretical Catholic politicians should have been openly excommunicated and the message that abortion and violations of religious conscience will not be tolerated sent clearly by force of example.  Catholics should have been clearly warned that to vote for Obama was to materially cooperate with evil. But the bishops were more worried about their image to the world, with appearing to be “civil”, with preserving their tax-exempt status, than ending religious oppression or tax payer funded horror of the abortion holocaust. Our shepherds failed to speak with a clear voice and the sheep have gone astray.

So what do we do now?

I suggest that we orthodox and faithful Catholics become a righteous remnant within the Church, creating orthodox cell groups to evangelize both inside and outside the Church. We can’t count on the bishops or the bureaucracy to take that responsibility. Before we can change society and our government we must first change hearts. All our activity and effort will be fruitless unless we first have revival in the Church and evangelism of our society. We must change hearts before we can change minds.

Our government and political system are broke and the people have no will to fix it. The only practical ideology in this situation is Christian Anarchism (I’m not suggesting we don’t vote, just that we don’t get ourselves wrapped up in the system). It’s time to go back to the catacombs figuratively speaking, to exist on the margins of society until and if it is evangelized. Only a truly Christian nation, based on unchanging morality, can be just.  The American people, even 52% of Catholic voters, have chosen to persecute Catholic organizations. We must accept this reality and prepare to accept further persecution and even martyrdom.

I am not suggesting that we disobey the laws, as long as they are not contrary to God’s law. God’s word is clear on this:

Romans 13:1-7
Every soul must be submissive to its lawful superiors; authority comes from God only, and all authorities that hold sway are of his ordinance. Thus the man who opposes authority is a rebel against the ordinance of God, and rebels secure their own condemnation. A good conscience has no need to go in fear of the magistrate, as a bad conscience does. If thou wouldst be free from the fear of authority, do right, and thou shalt win its approval; the magistrate is God’s minister, working for thy good. Only if thou dost wrong, needst thou be afraid; it is not for nothing that he bears the sword; he is God’s minister still, to inflict punishment on the wrong-doer. Thou must needs, then, be submissive, not only for fear of punishment, but in conscience. It is for this same reason that you pay taxes; magistrates are in God’s service, and must give all their time to it. Pay every man, then, his due; taxes, if it be taxes, customs, if it be customs; respect and honour, if it be respect and honour.

And:

1 Peter 2:11-17
Beloved, I call upon you to be like strangers and exiles, to resist those natural appetites which besiege the soul. Your life amidst the Gentiles must be beyond reproach; decried as malefactors, you must let them see, from your honourable behaviour, what you are; they will praise God for you, when his time comes to have mercy on them. For love of the Lord, then, bow to every kind of human authority; to the king, who enjoys the chief power, and to the magistrates who hold his commission to punish criminals and encourage honest men. To silence, by honest living, the ignorant chatter of fools; that is what God expects of you. Free men, but the liberty you enjoy is not to be made a pretext for wrong-doing; it is to be used in God’s service. Give all men their due; to the brethren, your love; to God, your reverence; to the king, due honour.

Render unto Caesar only what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.

Romans 11:5
So it is in our time; a remnant has remained true; grace has chosen it.

Let me know what you think. Let’s keep the conversation going.

Autohagiography 5

Eastern Religions

I was asked to tell a little about my my spiritual pilgrimage and my conversion to Catholicism. In this installment I will discuss very briefly my investigation of Eastern religions. I don't intend to go into them too deeply. Only to discuss the basics and why I found them wanting. In fact I believe a Christian who is grounded in his Christian faith can even benefit from a study of them. As the Magisterium has stated:

"The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions. She regards with sincere reverence those ways of conduct and of life, those precepts and teachings which, though differing in many aspects from the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men." (NOSTRA AETATE, Pope Paul VI, 1965)

  During  my time in the U.S. Navy I really didn't think a whole lot about religion. If anything, as I have said, Harley Davidson motorcycles had become my religion, and riding my devotional. But after I left the military and started attending a community college, for some reason, I became interested in Eastern religions, perhaps inspired by my study of philosophy and world history. 

  I remember distinctly, like it was yesterday, sitting in my car reading The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels Between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism by Fritjof Capra.

"The Tao of Physics, Capra's first book, challenges much of conventional wisdom by demonstrating striking parallels between ancient mystical traditions and the discoveries of 20th century physics. Originally published by a small publisher with no budget for promotion, the book became an underground bestseller by word of mouth before it was picked up by a major American publishing house. Since then, The Tao of Physics has been published in 43 editions in 23 languages."
(fritjofcapra.net)

  I'm not sure I really understood what I was reading, but it was fascinating nonetheless. And the pseudo-scientificness (I think I just invented that word) of it made it even more credible. There was certainly the scent of the exotic about the Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism discussed in this and the other books I read on this subject.

  When my ships pulled into Hong Kong or Singapore I might generally be coerced by my shipmates to accompany them the pubs and bars for an evening of alcoholic libations. If, as often happened, we were to get a trifle unruly, there were gigantic men with full beards and turbans who acted as bouncers. On occassion I was persuaded by them to leave these establishments. When I say "gigantic" understand that I am 6 feet and 4 inches tall and these fellows towered over me. These men were Sikhs, members of the religion founded in Northern India by Guru Nanak.

  Most Sikhs would probably be offended if I described their religion as a synthesis of the better parts of Hinduism and Islam, but that is essentially what it consists of. Sikhs believe in one ultimate God or "Guru", while leaving space for the existence of all the lesser deities of the Indian religions.

  The religion started out as rather peaceful, but after constant attacks from Hindus and Muslims, and several martyred gurus, the tenth Guru Gobind Singh decreed that henceforth all Sikh men would take the surname Singh (meaning lion) and stand prepared to fight at all times. The symbols of this readiness are the "Five Ks": Kesh, unshorn hair (they are, like the biblical nazirites, never to cut their hair), hence the turban; Kangha, the comb with which they keep their long hair and beard clean and neat; Kara, an iron or steel bracelet; Kacchha, a pair of short pants to aid movement (worn under outer clothes in practice); and Kirpan, a steel sword (Most Sikhs today wear small replicas in order to keep this precept). From that time also the Sikh Scriptures, or Guru Granth Sahib, were to be the only "Guru".

  Needless to say their martial aspect was attractive (Khan Noonien Singh, played by Ricardo Montalban in Star Trek's Space Seed and Wrath of Khan was also a Sikh!). I saw the Sikh religion as a perfect meshing of monotheism and Indian religions. After studying the religion for a time I considered accepting baptism into the religion, and had even gone so far as to locate the local Sikh gurdwara (The Sikh temple or church building). Of course that long hair thing and turban, I thought, might be a bit of a problem!

  And then it struck me (I now believe it was the voice of the Holy Spirit), I had done all this research into Eastern religions and was ready to take the plunge! Hadn't I better investigate the religion of my own culture before I reject it?

  Before I go into my initial investigations of Christianity I should probably summarize why exactly I rejected these Eastern religions. The religions of the East are generally monistic. To quote the dictionary definition:

  "(in metaphysics) any of various theories holding that there is only one basic substance or principle as the ground of reality, or that reality consists of a single element. Compare dualism."

   Basically the understanding is that everything IS God. You, I, that tree over there, everything is God. We simply don't know it. Coming to an experiential knowledge of that fact liberates one from the perpetual cycle of reincarnation and the suffering that accompanies it. Essentially my problem with this paradigm is that it suggests that God Himself is suffering from illusion and therefore imperfect. Why someone would want to worship such a God I could not and still can't fathom.

Autohagiography 4

Autohagiography 4


  I graduated from high school in the midst of a recession. I lived in Akron, Ohio. Goodyear, Firestone and other tire companies had been the staple of the economy for decades, ever since the time of the Eerie Canal. For some reason they had decided to move their plants elsewhere. Some said it was an effort to escape the unions, which were very strong there. My father couldn't afford to send me to college and I hadn't made good enough grades to expect any scholarships.

  For a year I competed with unemployed factory workers for the worst of temporary jobs. My father had worked at Goodyear and I thought his connections could get me in there. He got me an interview. I stood in line with 2,000 guys and when I got to the end I was informed there were only 24 openings. Needless to say I didn't get hired. As a last resort I considered trying to get Welfare as some friends had recommended. They laughed me out of the office. On the way back I passed by the Navy Recruiter's office. On a whim I grabbed some brochures. I found that if I spent as little as two years in the Navy the G.I. Bill would pay for my college. At the same time travel in other countries, especially the Orient and Far East seemed extremely appealing. I enlisted.

  I was sent to boot camp and signalman A School in Orlando, Florida. Most recruits, for reasons I couldn't fathom, had put on their dream sheets that they wanted to stay stateside. I wanted to see the world and have some adventures. I requested duty in the Far East and was assigned to the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Midway.

  While stationed on the Midway in Yokosuka, Japan I met my wife, who is Japanese. My two-year enlistment was nearly up, so I re-upped for another three years to stay in Japan and get married. We were married by the ambassador legally at the U.S. Embassy, then in a ceremony at a Shinto shrine in Kamakura, and had it blessed at a Buddhist temple.

I spent a two years on the frigate U.S.S. Knox and two years shore duty at Subase Bangor in the state of Washington. I might have made the Navy a career, but a particularly annoying chief gave me a hard time about visiting my wife in the hospital after the birth of our first son. He asked me to re-up soon after and I told him where he could stick it.

During my time in the military I really hadn't taken much interest in religion. I still retained an interest in the occult, but not enough to actually practice. Essentially I was an agnostic. Besides, while in Washington I had adopted a new religion: Harley Davidson motorcycles. I started out with a Sportster in Washington and upgraded to a Low Rider when I got back to Ohio. My goal was to attend Cuyahoga Community College in Cleveland and then transfer into the Graphic Design program at Kent State. While at C.C.C. I had developed an interest in Eastern Religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism. I nearly became a Sikh.

 

Autohagiography 3

  In junior high school I began to develop an interest in the occult. It started with one of those mass market paperbacks with a title like "Black Magic Spells" or something, probably picked up at the local Revco drug store. Of course I would never have dreamed of actually putting a curse on somebody, but it was fascinating anyway. I scoured the local libraries for books on magic and witchcraft. I purchased a copy of Aleister Crowley's "Confessions" and considered myself a follower, though I had little real understanding of what he taught.

  Once a friend and I were taking a walk through an old part of town and we passed by one of those dingy time store front shops. This one was called "The Occult Shop". Virtually everything in the shop was black, including the walls. There were apparently two owners, one named Steven Patrick and the other Patrick Stevens. Or so I was told. They could have been twins, dark-haired and bearded beatnik types. And there on the shelf was Aleister Crowley's "Magick in Theory and Practice". I couldn't afford the book, but struck up a conversation with Pat. He mentioned that he was considering having a mural painted on the wall. I mentioned that I was an artist and he suggested that if I painted him a mural he would pay me off in books. It was a deal! I painted the image of Baphomet from Eliphas Levi's book "Dogma and Rituals of High Magic" on the wall. From the torch on his head I painted stars fanning out up the wall and spreading over the whole ceiling. I was paid with "Magic in Theory and Practice" and a few other books on occult topics.

  From that time I started hanging out with Pat. He lived in an old house in a poor neighborhood that had been taken over by hippies. He actually had a magic circle burned into the floor. Magical implements hung on the walls, such as a large ritual sword. One day we were working at the shop when Pat got a phone call from his wife. She said she thought someone had got into the house. She had heard some noises. He told her to take the sword and look around. Nobody was there and the doors were all locked. "It must just be George", he said.

  Afterward I asked him, "Who's George?" He said George was the ghost who haunted the house. Indeed there we various odd noises and goings on in that house. At the time I thought it was ghosts and elementals. Now I'm pretty sure they were demons. One time I stayed the night and crashed on an old bare mattress in an upstairs room. There was no light in the room so I lay down with the door open. A light bulb burned in the hallway outside the door. Before I could even put my head down there a loud bang emanated from the space right between the mattress and the door and I felt an invisible presence. Having studied the works of Crowley and other ritual magicians I knew it was important to show no fear to demons or other spiritual entities. I sat up and said, "I'm not afraid of you!" The presence was gone and I put my head down to sleep peacefully.

  Through my late teens, my time in the Navy and on into college after, I considered myself a student of the occult. Now I am convinced that the Holy Spirit, infused in my baptism and confirmation, preserved me from the many dangers of flirting with the occult. In my next installment I'll tell about how I progressed from the occult to Eastern religions.

     

The Fathers against Contraception

The Fathers against Contraception

By Ronald M. Criss

Though the plethora of Orthodox churches are by no means united on the issue, an official document of the Russian Orthodox Church states that while abortifacient methods of contraception (i.e., ones that may cause abortion, like most birth-control pills and IUDs) are completely unacceptable, other methods can be used with spiritual counsel, taking into account "the concrete living conditions of the couple, their age, health, degree of spiritual maturity and many other circumstances".[1]  

According to a document published by the Orthodox Church of America, “Married couples may express their love in sexual union without always intending the conception of a child, but only those means of controlling conception within marriage are acceptable which do not harm a fetus already conceived.”[2]

As most people are well aware, the Catholic Church has always unreservedly condemned all forms of artificial contraception. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches:

“Periodic continence, that is, the methods of birth regulation based on self-observation and the use of infertile periods is in conformity with the objective criteria of morality. These methods respect the bodies of the spouses, encourage tenderness between them, and favor the education of an authentic freedom. In contrast, "every action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible" is intrinsically evil:

“Thus the innate language that expresses the total reciprocal self-giving of husband and wife is overlaid, through contraception, by an objectively contradictory language, namely, that of not giving oneself totally to the other. This leads not only to a positive refusal to be open to life but also to a falsification of the inner truth of conjugal love, which is called upon to give itself in personal totality. . . . The difference, both anthropological and moral, between contraception and recourse to the rhythm of the cycle. . . involves in the final analysis two irreconcilable concepts of the human person and of human sexuality.”[3]

“The regulation of births represents one of the aspects of responsible fatherhood and motherhood. Legitimate intentions on the part of the spouses do not justify recourse to morally unacceptable means (for example, direct sterilization or contraception).”[4]

In a previous article we showed how the Protestant allowance of unlimited divorces and re-marriages and the allowance of up to two “ecclesiastical divorces” and up to three marriages in the Orthodox churches was contrary to Scripture and tradition.  Orthodox apologists like to say that they, and not the Catholic Church, are the true representatives of the Church Fathers, but what do the Church Fathers actually have to say about contraception?

"Because of its divine institution for the propagation of man, the seed is not to be vainly ejaculated, nor is it to be damaged, nor is it to be wasted" (Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor of Children, 2:10:91:2 [A.D. 191]).

"[Some] complain of the scantiness of their means, and allege that they have not enough for bringing up more children, as though, in truth, their means were in [their] power . . . or God did not daily make the rich poor and the poor rich. Wherefore, if anyone, on any account of poverty shall be unable to bring up children, it is better to abstain from relations with his wife" (Lactantius, Divine Institutes, 6:20 [A.D. 3o7]).

"[I]f anyone in sound health has castrated [sterilized] himself, it behooves that such a one, if enrolled among the clergy, should cease [from his ministry], and that from henceforth no such person should be promoted. But, as it is evident that this is said of those who willfully do the thing and presume to castrate themselves, so if any have been made eunuchs by barbarians, or by their masters, and should otherwise be found worthy, such men this canon admits to the clergy" (Council of Nicaea I: canon l [A.D. 325]).

"They [certain Egyptian heretics] exercise genital acts, yet prevent the conceiving of children. Not in order to produce offspring, but to satisfy lust, are they eager for corruption" (Epiphanius, Medicine Chest Against Heresies, 26:5:2 [A.D. 375]).

"[I]n truth, all men know that they who are under the power of this disease [the sin of covetousness] are wearied even of their father's old age [wishing him to die so they can inherit]; and that which is sweet, and universally desirable, the having of children, they esteem grievous and unwelcome. Many at least with this view have even paid money to be childless, and have mutilated nature, not only killing the newborn, but even acting to prevent their beginning to live [sterilization]" (John Chrysostom , Homilies on Matthew, 28:5 [A.D. 391]).

"[T]he man who has mutilated [sterilized] himself, in fact, is subject even to a curse, as Paul says, 'I would that they who trouble you would cut the whole thing off' [Gal. 5 :12]. And very reasonably, for such a person is venturing on the deeds of murderers, and giving occasion to them that slander God's creation, and opens the mouths of the Manicheans, and is guilty of the same unlawful acts as they that mutilate themselves among the Greeks. For to cut off our members has been from the beginning a work of demonical agency, and satanic device, that they may bring up a bad report upon the works of God, that they may mar this living creature, that imputing all not to the choice, but to the nature of our members, the more part of them may sin in security as being irresponsible, and doubly harm this living creature, both by mutilating the members and be impeding the forwardness of the free choice in behalf of good deeds" (John Chrysostom, ibid. 62:3).

"Why do you sow where the field is eager to destroy the fruit, where there are medicines of sterility [oral contraceptives], where there is murder before birth? You do not even let a harlot remain only a harlot, but you make her a murderess as well.... Indeed, it is something worse than murder, and I do not know what to call it; for she does not kill what is formed but prevents its formation. What then? Do you condemn the gift of God and fight with his [natural] laws? . . . Yet such turpitude . . . the matter still seems indifferent to many men—even to many men having wives. In this indifference of the married men there is greater evil filth; for then poisons are prepared, not against the womb of a prostitute, but against your injured wife. Against her are these innumerable tricks" (John Chrysostom, Homilies on Romans, 24 [A.D. 391]).

"Observe how bitterly he [Paul] speaks against their deceivers . . . 'I would that they which trouble you would cut the whole thing off' [Gal. 5:12] .... On this account he curses them, and his meaning is as follows: 'For them I have no concern, "A man that is heretical after the first and second admonition." If they will, let them not only be circumcised but mutilated' [Titus 3:10]. Where then are those who dare to mutilate [sterilize] themselves, seeing that they drawn down the apostolic curse, and accuse the workmanship of God, and take part with the Manichees?" (John Chrysostom, Commentary on Galatians, 5:12 [A.D. 395]).

"Who is he who cannot warn that no woman may take a potion [an oral contraceptive or an abortifacient] so that she is unable to conceive or condemns in herself the nature which God willed to be fecund? As often as she could have conceived or given birth, of that many homicides she will be held guilty, and, unless she undergoes suitable penance, she will be damned by eternal death in hell. If a women does not wish to have children, let her enter into a religious agreement with her husband; for chastity is the sole sterility of a Christian woman" (John Chrysostom, Sermons,  1:12 [A.D. 522]).

These examples should be enough to illustrate the fact that it is the Catholic Church, not the Orthodox churches or the Protestant sects that in fact most closely represents the received tradition from the Church Fathers, indeed the teaching that even the Orthodox and Protestants both retained until the 20^th Century. Indeed the words of Pope Paul VI have proved to be quite prophetic:

“Upright men can even better convince themselves of the solid grounds on which the teaching of the Church in this field is based, if they care to reflect upon the consequences of methods of artificial birth control. Let them consider, first of all, how wide and easy a road would thus be opened up towards conjugal infidelity and the general lowering of morality. Not much experience is needed in order to know human weakness, and to understand that men -- especially the young, who are so vulnerable on this point -- have need of encouragement to be faithful to the moral law, so that they must not be offered some easy means of eluding its observance. It is also to be feared that the man, growing used to the employment of anti-conceptive practices, may finally lose respect for the woman and, no longer caring for her physical and psychological equilibrium, may come to the point of considering her as a mere instrument of selfish enjoyment, and no longer as his respected and beloved companion.”[5]

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[1] http://www.mospat.ru/ru/documents/social-concepts/192

[2] http://www.oca.org/DOCmarriage.asp?ID=19

[3] http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/2370.htm

^[4] http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/2399.htm

[5] http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Paul06/p6humana.htm