The tragedy in Tucson that Saturday morning.

I have chosen to wait until now before weighing in on the massacre by Jared Lee Loughner of six innocent people last Saturday morning. He committed this massacre while trying to murder Rep. Gabrielle Giffords during her Congress On Your Corner meeting in the parking lot of a little mall in Tucson, Arizona. I think I have heard and seen enough now. This is how I see it.

Who caused it?

The leftist journalists: reporters and commentators: online, on air, and in print, would have you believe that it was all the fault of the rightist media. They were responsible for Mr. Loughner’s  massacring and wounding all those people  in Tucson that Saturday morning. The right, they would say, was both the “who caused it” and the “what caused it”;  linked together, as it were,  like the two horns on the head of a bull.

Jon Stewart, intelligent fellow that he is, disagreed with his brethren on the left.

So help me, the only vilification I heard after Saturday’s massacre came from commentators on the left who directed their comments at their counterparts on the right. Not a good show, that.

A nice departure from all that vitriol from the left was that by Jon Stewart, who thought all that vitriol a bad idea. That verifies what I have always thought about him. Jon Stewart is an intelligent man; wrong politically much of the time, maybe, but intelligent still.

What caused it?

As I said above, according to the leftist hate-mongers, it was the commentators on the right: Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilley, Sean Hannity, Glen Beck, and the rest of the Fox News crew and their contributors that stirred the anger of the people to a feverish pitch. Perhaps no other contributor on Fox News gets the dander of the left up more than does Sarah Palin, with her all-American frontier, plain-spoken style, and down-to-earth ways, and Christian view of life.

In the end though, Jared Lee Loughner was the real killer, and he alone is guilty of the massacre at Tucson. He alone pulled the trigger on all those innocent people.

The president said it well later in his well-written speech in Tucson

It is seldom I find a reason to praise President Obama, but this is one of those times. The president laid it out very well in his speech when he said it wasn’t political hate-speech that caused Jared Loughner to kill all those people while trying to kill Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. During that speech was the first time I had ever felt Mr. Obama acted like the  president of all the American people.

I understand Mr. Obama was taken aback when the memorial service turned into more of a political rally than a memorial service.

Arizona's Chief Justice, U.S. District Judge John Roll also a massacre victim last Saturday.

It wasn’t Mr. Obama’s fault when the crowd began to look at the one-liners in his speech as if they were being uttered at a combined memorial for living heroes, and a political or high school pep rally. Once he saw what was happening, I think he would have done well had he held up his hand and simply said something like “Please,” or “Enough.” That would have stopped the rah-rah applause.

It is hard to blame the president for not doing that though. I will just stick with my thought that Mr. Obama was very presidential and the president of all Americans that night and I give him kudos for that.

And, mind you, the heroes of that shooting are to be lauded, but during that memorial for the reposed was not the time to do it. It was supposed to be a memorial service for the reposed, not the living. That all reminded me of the Sen. Paul Wellstone memorial that happened during the Bill Clinton era. It became an all out political pep rally, instead of a memorial service for Mr. Wellstone.

The memorial service for the reposed of the Tucson massacre was a secular statist event.

One other curious thing comes to mind about the memorial service in Tucson. It is of particular note that not one of the Christian or Jewish ministers of God for any of the reposed were allowed to read the Holy Scriptures or to speak a few words memorializing any of them. How sad. The reposed were simply forgotten, for the most part, during that service. The attendees showed that was the case  by their reactions to the various speakers.

Zach Osler on who Jared Lee Loughner is and what motivates him.

Zach Osler, a high school friend of Jared Loughner, said in an interview with ABC’s Ashleigh Banfield of the Good Morning America show that his friend wasn’t shooting at people. He said “[Loughner] was shooting at the world.” He also said Loughner did not listen to the high-pitched talk radio and cable news political rhetoric, he didn’t even watch the news; in fact, he did not watch TV. He disliked the news. He didn’t take sides. He wasn’t on the left. He wasn’t on the right. Something I found interesting was that Mr. Olser said the website Zikegist added fuel to the fire for the hatred that exuded from Loughner in such abundance.

Did this website set Loughner off during the days preceding his action that fateful Saturday?

The closest thing to a website by a name resembling Zikegist that I could find was one called The Zeitgeist Movement. I think that probably is the website Mr. Olser had in mind. It appears to be composed of a political mishmash of hate and dislike for all kinds of things political and economic.

the mugshot of the murderer, Jared Loughnepolitical mishmash of hate and dislike for all kinds of things political and economic.

Loughner’s politics and motive for the massacre were his inborn madness.

Zack Olser told us what made Jared Loughner gun down all those people in the process of trying to kill Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. He said Loughner’s politics and his motive for the shooting were based entirely on the madness that gripped Loughner’s mind. Thankfully, Mr. Osler’s words helped to cleared the air of guilt the hate-mongering of left had been engendering toward the right.

Ban Guns? Is that the cure for such atrocious acts?

Surprise, surprise, I noticed the ban-the-guns crowd immediately jumped that bandwagon as the answer to how to stop such violent acts from occurring in the future. Well, guns are inanimate objects,  and as such, they can do only what a human or some other animate entity makes them do. If we were going to ban guns to stop such violent acts from occurring, we should also want to ban other implements that could be used to same purpose. Unfortunately, were we to carry that idea to its logical conclusion, we would have to start eating with our fingers, since table knives and forks can kill just as decisively as do guns.

No. Banning guns, large capacity clips,  and so-called assault weapons, will do nothing to stop people from killing other people. We need to keep our guns for various reasons, including self-protection. One of the entities we need protection from could be our own government some day, if and when the statist have their way and make America a truly socialist country run by a communist dictatorship of, by, and for the governors.

Now let us pray for the departed whom Jared Loughner wantonly slaughtered and maimed in the Tucson Massacre.

May God give rest to the souls of the recently reposed faithful who were massacred in Tucson. May He give them rest where the righteous repose: in a place of brightness, a place of verdure, a place of repose, whence all sickness, sighing and sorrow have fled away. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

Let us pray for those whom Jared Loughner maimed that fateful morning, starting  with Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. May God give all of them a good and full recovery, and the grace to live a good and useful life for their benefit and for that of their fellowman for the rest of their days until they “have shuffled off this mortal coil.”¹ Amen.

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I am back! I was away for a while, but now it’s time to get started for the coming elections and on into the future.

~~~   ~~~   ~~~

They turned Obama into a star and an idol of the far left

Yessiree, the left and the far left, a.k.a., the Democrat Party, built Obama up and turned him into a star and an idol of the far left, and finally they got him elected to President of these United States.

Never mind that the man had never held a job or that he the most he ever made of himself was a simple community organizer in association with a criminal organization called ACORN. Never mind all of that. The folks in Chicago and the rest of Illinois wanted him. He looked tolerably well to both blacks and whites, and he spoke well enough to sound convincing to them when he promised the moon and the stars free of charge to the downtrodden masses.

Obama’s political family tree and training

The people who appear to have been most instrumental in Obama’s political training where his radical Moslem father, as outlined in Obama’s book, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance , and the teachings of the radical communist Saul Alinsky, a noted community organizer, and author of Obama’s bible, Rules for Radicals.

Another person who had a long-term and very strong influence on Obama was that paragon of Christian tolerance and forgiveness—even of all the mean “white men” who made blacks fail at (you name it)—his beloved pastor and mentor in life, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ on Chicago’s south side.

There were others who influenced Obama’s thinking. A standout among them was Van Jones, a communist revolutionary. Don’t know who he is? You should find out who he is. He is a very scary man. His book, The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems , will give you a good dose of his thinking. Next comes another dose of Van Jones and STORM. Now take a look at this on Van Jones and STORM, and finally, Glenn Beck’s Van Jones Battle.  That should be enough to stoke the fire in your belly.

After taking look at the sources I have outlined here, you will certainly have a better idea of Obama’s political family tree and of who he is now. There is a lot to loath about the man’s background and training.

The man remains a committed communist

Over the next few weeks and months, you may see Obama make a swing toward the right. Don’t be fooled by this rightward drift. He is and will remain a committed communist soldier, dedicated to the overthrow of the America we love and all of her exceptional ideals and strengths.

We are a Christian nation founded by Christians

We are a Christian nation founded by Christians, who believed (Yes, a few of them were deists but they, too, believed) that Christian morality was the genesis of all the good they had to offer us.  Obama hates that idea. To him Moslems are just as good, if not better, than are Christians.

The basis of my belief system

Allow me to take just moment to tell you the basis of my belief system concerning the things most important to a well-lived life in Christ.

My outlook in the world is strongly influenced by my belief in traditional Orthodox Catholic Church and the traditional One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. My political belief system is rooted in the political beliefs of the founding fathers and the constitutional conservative, federal, representative republic they gave us.

The overall premise of this blog is based on securing our God-given “unalienable Rights” . . . “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” against tyranny. The tyranny foremost in the minds of the founding fathers was that we should protect ourselves against was the tyranny of the majority. The U.S. Senate is the house of the legislative branch of our government most charged with protecting us from the tyranny of the majority.

Our people are the freest of the free

Our people are still the freest people of any nation on the planet earth; citizens of the freest nation in the history of man. We can become a far freer nation, like the nation we once were, if we will but muster the strength of character needed to return to the first principles of our very own Constitution of the United States, as interpreted in light of our Declaration of Independence and the many other writings of our founders. Obama loathes everything thought I have just written and will fight with all he’s got to avoid such a return to national sanity.

Every good thing—and there is a world of good things—about our America is exceptional in this world of nation states. Obama hates the concept of American exceptionalism. He has profited by it but he hates it still and will not admit it is reality in this surreal world we Christians are sojourning in for a time.

We are and must remain world that shining city upon a hill for the sake of the world

We are far from perfect neighbors to the world’s downtrodden, but we remain that shining city upon a hill to the world that Ronald Reagan spoke so eloquently of in his famous, The Shining City Upon A Hill speech,

Pope Pius XII, 'Pastor Angelicus'

delivered on January 25, 1974, as the clouds were gathering on the presidency of Richard Millhouse Nixon. Here it is in his words, “Standing on the tiny deck of the Arabella in 1630 off the Massachusetts coast, John Winthrop said, ‘We will be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us, so that if we deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword throughout the world.’ Well, we have not dealt falsely with our God, even if He is temporarily suspended from the classroom.”

The last words of that speech are also apropos what I am writing about here. He ended that speech, saying: “We cannot escape our destiny, nor should we try to do so. The leadership of the free world was thrust upon us two centuries ago.… In the days following World War II, when the economic strength and power of America was all that stood between the world and the return to the dark ages, Pope Pius XII said, ‘The American people have a great genius for splendid and unselfish actions. Into the hands of America God has placed the destinies of an afflicted mankind.’”

Obama hates to be reminded of the ideals expressed in that speech, just as he hates the idea that we are in anyway special in the eyes of the less free in the world. He hates it so bad that he cannot allow an opportunity go by to bow and scrape, and apologize as the president of America before our atheistic Moslem and other enemies¹ everywhere of freedom. And a big part of his plan for bringing us to see ourselves as he sees us, he is working day and night to break us economically, so he can bend us to his will. That is the kind of egomaniacal, perfidious bastard we have elected as our president. Shame on us.

Obama is a frightening character

Yip, Obama is a frightening character. I wonder that he fooled so many of us. It just goes to show how our turn from the ancient Christian way, plus the continuing slide of our educational system have affected i

We must repent of our hedonism and idolatry and work, as did our forefathers before us, to keep our light shining for all who seek freedom from tyranny.

We will find out, just as the Jews of the Old Testament found out, that if we continue down this road of throwing God out of our lives, we will be disinherited by Him until and unless we relent and repent of our hedonism and idolatry. I am confident that we will make the right choice, the choice to turn back to our Christian God and to the wisdom of the founders of our country in giving us a federalist system with a democratically elected representative government for our republic. I am a strong believer in the wisdom of the people of our nation, despite their many failings to this point in time. In a manner of speaking, this allowing of all those failures is a testament to the openness of our freedom-loving people; a people, who in the end always choose the best course, when they follow the dictates of our heavenly king, Jesus, the Christ—the anointed Son of God.

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Memories of John F. Kennedy and His Crime

Sen. John F. Kennedy Addressing the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, Sept. 12, 1960 at the Rice Hotel in Houston, TX

Some of my memories of President John F. Kennedy are so indelible it is as if they happened only yesterday. One of those memories is of Senator John Kennedy going to Houston to face a group of ministers in an effort to prove to them that his Catholic faith would not keep him from being a good President of the United States. What I, and probably most of those ministers, didn’t realize then was that Senator Kennedy committed a grievous crime that night as he stood there before them defending his ability to perform the task he aspired to without being hindered by the tenants of his Catholic faith. The crime he committed was in theorizing the most rigid separation of Church and state, in order to be acceptable as president.  It wasn’t a criminal act according to the law of the land, but it was a crime against the American people, the Roman Catholic Church, and, by extension, against all American Christians of every branch of Christianity—including the ministers before whom he spoke that fateful night. In short, it was a crime or sin, if you will, against God in his fellowman everywhere.

Here is a talk given by Charles Chaput, Archbishop of Denver, some 50 years later, before that selfsame group of ministers which was the very scene of Kennedy’s crime. I think it reasonable to assume that, by the time the Archbishop Charles finished speaking that night, those ministers understood the crime Kennedy had committed when he spoke before them that night.

THE VOCATION OF CHRISTIANS IN AMERICAN PUBLIC LIFE

by Charles J. Chaput

Charles J. Chaput, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Denver

One of the ironies in my talk tonight is this. I’m a Catholic bishop, speaking at a Baptist university in America’s Protestant heartland. But I’ve been welcomed with more warmth and friendship than I might find at a number of Catholic venues. This is a fact worth discussing. I’ll come back to it at the end of my comments. [...]

I need to offer a few caveats before I turn to the substance of our discussion.

The first caveat is this: My thoughts tonight are purely my own. I don’t speak for the Holy See, or the American Catholic bishops, or the Houston Catholic community. In the Catholic tradition, the local bishop is the chief preacher and teacher of the faith, and the shepherd of the local Church. Here in Houston you have an outstanding bishop – a man of great Christian faith and intellect – in Cardinal Daniel DiNardo. In all things Catholic tonight, I’m glad to defer to his leadership.

Here’s my second caveat: I’m here as a Catholic Christian and an American citizen – in that order. Both of these identities are important. They don’t need to conflict. They are not, however, the same thing. And they do not have the same weight. I love my country. I revere the genius of its founding documents and its public institutions. But no nation, not even the one I love, has a right to my allegiance, or my silence, in matters that belong to God or that undermine the dignity of the human persons He created.

My third caveat is this: Catholics and Protestants have different memories of American history. The historian Paul Johnson once wrote that America was “born Protestant” ¹. That’s clearly true. Whatever America is today or may become tomorrow, its origin was deeply shaped by a Protestant Christian spirit, and the fruit of that spirit has been, on the balance, a great blessing for humanity. But it’s also true that, while Catholics have always thrived in the United States, they lived through two centuries of discrimination, religious bigotry and occasional violence. Protestants of course will remember things quite differently. They will remember Catholic persecution of dissenters in Europe, the entanglements of the Roman Church and state power, and papal suspicion of democracy and religious liberty.

We can’t erase those memories. And we cannot – nor should we try to – paper over the issues that still divide us as believers in terms of doctrine, authority and our understandings of the Church. Ecumenism based on good manners instead of truth is empty. It’s also a form of lying. If we share a love of Jesus Christ and a familial bond in baptism and God’s Word, then on a fundamental level, we’re brothers and sisters. Members of a family owe each other more than surface courtesies. We owe each other the kind of fraternal respect that “speak[s] the truth in love” (Eph 4:15). We also urgently owe each other solidarity and support in dealing with a culture that increasingly derides religious faith in general, and the Christian faith in particular. And that brings me to the heart of what I want to share with you.

*

Our theme tonight is the vocation of Christians in American public life. That’s a pretty broad canvas. Broad enough that I wrote a book about it. Tonight I want to focus in a special way on the role of Christians in our country’s civic and political life. The key to our discussion will be that word “vocation.” It comes from the Latin word “vocare,” which means, “to call.” Christians believe that God calls each of us individually, and all of us as a believing community, to know, love and serve him in our daily lives.

But there’s more. He also asks us to make disciples of all nations. That means we have a duty to preach Jesus Christ. We have a mandate to share his Gospel of truth, mercy, justice and love. These are mission words; action words. They’re not optional. And they have practical consequences for the way we think, speak, make choices and live our lives, not just at home but in the public square. Real Christian faith is always personal, but it’s never private. And we need to think about that simple fact in light of an anniversary.

Fifty years ago this fall, in September 1960, Sen. John F. Kennedy, the Democratic candidate for president, spoke to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association. He had one purpose. He needed to convince 300 uneasy Protestant ministers, and the country at large, that a Catholic like himself could serve loyally as our nation’s chief executive. Kennedy convinced the country, if not the ministers, and went on to be elected. And his speech left a lasting mark on American politics. It was sincere, compelling, articulate – and wrong. Not wrong about the patriotism of Catholics, but wrong about American history and very wrong about the role of religious faith in our nation’s life. And he wasn’t merely “wrong.” His Houston remarks profoundly undermined the place not just of Catholics, but of all religious believers, in America’s public life and political conversation. Today, half a century later, we’re paying for the damage.

Now those are strong statements. So I’ll try to explain them by doing three things. First, I want to look at the problems in what Kennedy actually said. Second, I want to reflect on what a proper Christian approach to politics and public service might look like. And last, I want to examine where Kennedy’s speech has led us – in other words, the realities we face today, and what Christians need to do about those realities.

*
John Kennedy was a great speaker. Ted Sorensen, who helped craft the Houston speech, was a gifted writer. As a result, it’s easy to speed-read Kennedy’s Houston remarks as a passionate appeal for tolerance. But the text has at least two big flaws ². The first is political and historical. The second is religious.

Early in his remarks, Kennedy said: “I believe in an America where the separation of Church and state is absolute.” Given the distrust historically shown to Catholics in this country, his words were shrewdly chosen. The trouble is, the Constitution doesn’t say that. The Founders and Framers didn’t believe that. And the history of the United States contradicts that. Unlike revolutionary leaders in Europe, the American Founders looked quite favorably on religion. Many were believers themselves. In fact, one of the main reasons for writing the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause – the clause that bars any federally-endorsed Church – was that several of the Constitution’s Framers wanted to protect the publicly funded Protestant Churches they already had in their own states. John Adams actually preferred a “mild and equitable establishment of religion” and helped draft that into the 1780 Massachusetts Constitution ³.

America’s Founders encouraged mutual support between religion and government. Their reasons were practical. In their view, a republic like the United States needs a virtuous people to survive. Religious faith, rightly lived, forms virtuous people. Thus, the modern, drastic sense of the “separation of Church and state” had little force in American consciousness until Justice Hugo Black excavated it from a private letter President Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1802 to the Danbury Baptist Association ⁴. Justice Black then used Jefferson’s phrase in the Supreme Court’s Everson v. Board of Education decision in 1947.

The date of that Court decision is important, because America’s Catholic bishops wrote a wonderful pastoral letter one year later – in 1948 – called “The Christian in Action.” It’s worth reading. In that letter, the bishops did two things. They strongly endorsed American democracy and religious freedom. They also strongly challenged Justice Black’s logic in Everson.

The bishops wrote that “it would be an utter distortion of American history and law” to force the nation’s public institutions into an “indifference to religion and the exclusion of cooperation between religion and government.” They rejected Justice Black’s harsh new sense of the separation of Church and state as a “shibboleth of doctrinaire secularism” ⁵. And the bishops argued their case from the facts of American history.

The value of remembering that pastoral statement tonight is this: Kennedy referenced the 1948 bishops’ letter in his Houston comments. He wanted to prove the deep Catholic support for American democracy. And rightly so. But he neglected to mention that the same bishops, in the same letter, repudiated the new and radical kind of separation doctrine he was preaching.

The Houston remarks also created a religious problem. To his credit, Kennedy said that if his duties as President should “ever require me to violate my conscience or violate the national interest, I would resign the office.” He also warned that he would not “disavow my views or my church in order to win this election.” But in its effect, the Houston speech did exactly that. It began the project of walling religion away from the process of governance in a new and aggressive way. It also divided a person’s private beliefs from his or her public duties. And it set “the national interest” over and against “outside religious pressures or dictates.”

For his audience of Protestant ministers, Kennedy’s stress on personal conscience may have sounded familiar and reassuring. But what Kennedy actually did, according to Jesuit scholar Mark Massa, was something quite alien and new. He “‘secularize[d] the American presidency in order to win it.” In other words, “[P]recisely because Kennedy was not an adherent of that mainstream Protestant religiosity that had created and buttressed the ‘plausibility structures’ of [American] political culture at least since Lincoln, he had to ‘privatize’ presidential religious belief – including and especially his own – in order to win that office” ⁶.

In Massa’s view, the kind of secularity pushed by the Houston speech “represented a near total privatization of religious belief – so much a privatization that religious observers from both sides of the Catholic/Protestant fence commented on its remarkable atheistic implications for public life and discourse.” And the irony – again as told by Massa – is that some of the same people who worried publicly about Kennedy’s Catholic faith got a result very different from the one they expected. In effect, “the raising of the [Catholic] issue itself went a considerable way toward ‘secularizing’ the American public square by privatizing personal belief. The very effort to ‘safeguard’ the [essentially Protestant] religious aura of the presidency… contributed in significant ways to its secularization.”

Fifty years after Kennedy’s Houston speech, we have more Catholics in national public office than ever before. But I wonder if we’ve ever had fewer of them who can coherently explain how their faith informs their work, or who even feel obligated to try. The life of our country is no more “Catholic” or “Christian” than it was 100 years ago. In fact it’s arguably less so. And at least one of the reasons for it is this: Too many Catholics confuse their personal opinions with a real Christian conscience. Too many live their faith as if it were a private idiosyncrasy – the kind that they’ll never allow to become a public nuisance. And too many just don’t really believe. Maybe it’s different in Protestant circles. But I hope you’ll forgive me if I say, “I doubt it.”

*

John Kennedy didn’t create the trends in American life that I’ve described. But at least for Catholics, his Houston speech clearly fed them. Which brings me to the second point of my talk: What would a proper Christian approach to politics look like? John Courtney Murray, the Jesuit scholar who spoke so forcefully about the dignity of American democracy and religious freedom, once wrote: “The Holy Spirit does not descend into the City of Man in the form of a dove. He comes only in the endlessly energetic spirit of justice and love that dwells in the man of the City, the layman” ⁷.

Here’s what that means. Christianity is not mainly – or even significantly –- about politics. It’s about living and sharing the love of God. And Christian political engagement, when it happens, is never mainly the task of the clergy. That work belongs to lay believers who live most intensely in the world. Christian faith is not a set of ethics or doctrines. It’s not a group of theories about social and economic justice. All these things have their place. All of them can be important. But a Christian life begins in a relationship with Jesus Christ; and it bears fruit in the justice, mercy and love we show to others because of that relationship.

Jesus said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets” (Mt 22:37-40). That’s the test of our faith, and without a passion for Jesus Christ in our hearts that reshapes our lives, Christianity is just a word game and a legend. Relationships have consequences. A married man will commit himself to certain actions and behaviors, no matter what the cost, out of the love he bears for his wife. Our relationship with God is the same. We need to live and prove our love by our actions, not just in our personal and family lives, but also in the public square. Therefore Christians individually and the Church as a believing community engage the political order as an obligation of the Word of God. Human law teaches and forms as well as regulates; and human politics is the exercise of power – which means both have moral implications that the Christian cannot ignore and still remain faithful to his vocation as a light to the world (Mt 5:14-16).

Robert Dodaro, the Augustinian priest and scholar, wrote a wonderful book a few years ago called “Christ and the Just Society in the Thought of Augustine”. In his book and elsewhere, Dodaro makes four key points about Augustine’s view of Christianity and politics ⁸.

First, Augustine never really offers a political theory, and there’s a reason. He doesn’t believe human beings can know or create perfect justice in this world. Our judgment is always flawed by our sinfulness. Therefore, the right starting point for any Christian politics is humility, modesty and a very sober realism.

Second, no political order, no matter how seemingly good, can ever constitute a just society. Errors in moral judgment can’t be avoided. These errors also grow exponentially in their complexity as they move from lower to higher levels of society and governance. Therefore the Christian needs to be loyal to his nation and obedient to its legitimate rulers. But he also needs to cultivate a critical vigilance about both.

Third, despite these concerns, Christians still have a duty to take part in public life according to their God-given abilities, even when their faith brings them into conflict with public authority. We can’t simply ignore or withdraw from civic affairs. The reason is simple. The classic civic virtues named by Cicero – prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance – can be renewed and elevated, to the benefit of all citizens, by the Christian virtues of faith, hope and charity. Therefore, political engagement is a worthy Christian task, and public office is an honorable Christian vocation.

Fourth, in governing as best they can, while conforming their lives and their judgment to the content of the Gospel, Christian leaders in public life can accomplish real good, and they can make a difference. Their success will always be limited and mixed. It will never be ideal. But with the help of God they can improve the moral quality of society, which makes the effort invaluable.

What Augustine believes about Christian leaders, we can reasonably extend to the vocation of all Christian citizens. The skills of the Christian citizen are finally very simple: a zeal for Jesus Christ and his Church; a conscience formed in humility and rooted in Scripture and the believing community; the prudence to see which issues in public life are vital and foundational to human dignity, and which ones are not; and the courage to work for what’s right. We don’t cultivate these skills alone. We develop them together as Christians, in prayer, on our knees, in the presence of Jesus Christ – and also in discussions like tonight.

*

Now before ending, I want to turn briefly to the third point I mentioned earlier in my talk: the realities we face today, and what Christians need to do about them. As I was preparing these comments for tonight, I listed all the urgent issues that demand our attention as believers: abortion; immigration; our obligations to the poor, the elderly and the disabled; questions of war and peace; our national confusion about sexual identity and human nature, and the attacks on marriage and family life that flow from this confusion; the growing disconnection of our science and technology from real moral reflection; the erosion of freedom of conscience in our national health-care debates; the content and quality of the schools that form our children.

The list is long. I believe abortion is the foundational human rights issue of our lifetime. We need to do everything we can to support women in their pregnancies and to end the legal killing of unborn children. We may want to remember that the Romans had a visceral hatred for Carthage not because Carthage was a commercial rival, or because its people had a different language and customs. The Romans hated Carthage above all because its people sacrificed their infants to Ba’al. For the Romans, who themselves were a hard people, that was a unique kind of wickedness and barbarism. As a nation, we might profitably ask ourselves whom and what we’ve really been worshipping in our 40 million “legal” abortions since 1973.

All of these issues that I’ve listed above divide our country and our Churches in a way Augustine would have found quite understandable. The City of God and the City of Man overlap in this world. Only God knows who finally belongs to which. But in the meantime, in seeking to live the Gospel we claim to believe, we find friends and brothers in unforeseen places, unlikely places; and when that happens, even a foreign place can seem like one’s home.

The vocation of Christians in American public life does not have a Baptist or Catholic or Greek Orthodox or any other brand-specific label. John 14:6 – “I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father but by me” – which is so key to the identity of Houston Baptist University, burns just as hot in this heart, and the heart of every Catholic who truly understands his faith. Our job is to love God, preach Jesus Christ, serve and defend God’s people, and sanctify the world as his agents. To do that work, we need to be one. Not “one” in pious words or good intentions, but really one, perfectly one, in mind and heart and action, as Christ intended. This is what Jesus meant when he said: “I do not pray for these only, but also those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me and I in thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me” (Jn 17:20-21).

We live in a country that was once – despite its sins and flaws – deeply shaped by Christian faith. It can be so again. But we will do that together, or we won’t do it at all. We need to remember the words of St. Hilary from so long ago: “Unum sunt, qui invicem sunt”, they are one, who are wholly for each other ⁹. May God grant us the grace to love each other, support each other and live wholly for each other in Jesus Christ – so that we might work together in renewing the nation that has served human freedom so well.

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The complete text of the speech given by John F. Kennedy on September 12, 1960, to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association:

> “While the so called religious issue…”

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On the book “Render Unto Caesar” by Archbishop Charles J. Chaput:

> How to Conduct Politics as Catholics. The Denver Memorandum (13.8.2008)

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On a recent appeal from representatives of various Christian confessions of the United States:

> The “Manhattan Declaration”: The Manifesto That’s Shaking America (25.11.2009)

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3. In Celebration of the Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord, the Winter Pascha

MORNING PRAYERS

My Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from me. Nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt (Matt 26:36).

On arising from sleep, stand before the holy icons with reverence and fear of God; make the sign of the sign of the Cross and say:

IN the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Then the introductory prayers:

Glory to Thee, our God, glory to Thee.

Heavenly King, O Comforter, the Spirit of truth, Who art everywhere present and fillest all things, O Treasury of every good and Bestower of life: come and dwell in us, and cleanse us from every stain, and save our souls, O Good One.

Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us. (3)

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit; both now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.
All-holy Trinity, have mercy on us. Lord, be gracious unto our sins. Master, pardon our iniquities. Holy One, visit and heal our infirmities for Thy Name’s sake.

Lord, have mercy. (3)

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit; both now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

OUR Father, Which art in the Heavens, hallowed by Thy Name. Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

Priest: For Thine is the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory; both now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

(Or:)

People: Through the prayers of our holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us. Amen.

Then the following Troparia to the Holy Trinity:

AS we arise from sleep, we fall down before Thee, O Good One, and we cry unto Thee with the hymn of the Angels, O Mighty One: Holy, Holy, Holy art Thou, O God. Through the Theotokos, have mercy on us.

Glory. (Abbreviation meaning say, Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit;)

HAVING Raised me from bed and from sleep, O Lord, enlighten my mind and my heart, and open Thou my lips that I may praise Thee, O Holy trinity. Holy, Holy, Holy art Thou, O God. Through the Theotokos, have mercy on us.

Both now.

OF a sudden the Judge shall come, and the deeds of each shall be laid bare. But let us cry out with fear in the midst of the night: Holy, Holy, Holy art Thou, O God. Through the Theotokos, have mercy on us.

Lord, have mercy. (3)

And the following prayer:

AS  I rise from sleep I thank Thee, O Holy Trinity, for because of Thy great goodness and long-suffering Thou wast not wroth with me, the slothful and sinner, nor didst Thou destroy me in mine iniquities, but didst show Thy wonted love for man, and when I was prostrate in despair, Thou didst raise me to keep the morning watch and glorify Thy dominion. And now enlighten Thou the eyes of my mind, open my mouth to meditate on Thy words and to understand Thy commandments, and to do Thy will, and to chant unto Thee in heartfelt confession, and praise Thine All-holy Name, of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

O come, let us worship and fall down before our King and God.

O come, let us worship and fall down before Christ, our King and God.

O Come, let us worship and fall down before Him, Christ the King and our God.

PSALM 50

HAVE mercy on me, O God, according to Thy great mercy; and according to the multitude of Thy compassions blot out my transgression.
Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
For I know mine iniquity, and my sin is ever before me.
Against Thee only have I sinned and done this evil before Thee, that Thou mightest be justified in Thy words and prevail when Thou art judged.
For behold, I was conceived in iniquities, and in sins did bear me.
For behold, Thou hast loved truth; the hidden and secret things of Thy wisdom hast Thou made manifest unto me.
Thou shalt sprinkle me with hyssop, and I shall be made clean; Thou shalt wash me, and I shall be made whiter than snow.
Thou shalt make me to hear joy and gladness; the bones that be humbled, they shall rejoice.
Turn Thy face away from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities.
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away form Thy presence, and take not Thy Holy spirit from me.
Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation, and with Thy governing Spirit establish me.
I shall teach transgressors Thy ways, and the ungodly shall turn back unto Thee.
Deliver me from blood-guiltiness, O God, Thou God of my salvation; my tongue shall rejoice in Thy righteousness.
O Lord, Thou shalt open my lips, and my mouth shall declare Thy praise.
For if Thou hadst desired sacrifice, I had given it; with whole-burnt offerings Thou shalt not be pleased.
A sacrifice unto God is a broken spirit; a heart that is broken and humbled God will not despise.
Do good, O Lord, in Thy good pleasure unto Sion, and let the walls of Jerusalem be builded.
Then shalt Thou be pleased with a sacrifice of righteousness, with oblation and whole-burnt offerings.
Then shall they offer bullocks upon Thine altar.

THE CREED

I BELIEVE in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible;
And in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Only-begotten, begotten of the Father before all ages; Light of Light, true God of true God; begotten, not made; being of one essence with the Father; by Whom all things were made;
Who for us men, and for our salvation, came down from the Heavens, and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and became man;
And was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, suffered and was buried;
And arose again on the third day according to the Scriptures;
And ascended into the Heavens, and sitteth at the right hand of the Father;
And shall come again, with glory, to judge both the living and the dead; Whose Kingdom shall have no end;
And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Give of life; Who proceedeth from the Father; Who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified; Who spake by the Prophets;
In One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.
I confess one baptism for the remission of sins.
I look for the resurrection of the dead,

And the life of the ages to come. Amen.

A PRAYER OF SAINT BASEL THE GREAT

THEE do we bless, Thou most High God and Lord of mercy, Who ever workest with us deeds great and unfathomable, glorious and extraordinary, whereof there is no number; Who hast given unto us sleep for rest from our infirmity, and for repose of our much-toiling flesh. We thank Thee that Thou hast not destroyed us in our iniquities, but hast shown Thy wonted love for man, and though we  were prostrate in despair, Thou hast raised us up to glorify Thy dominion. Wherefore, we beseech Thine incomparable goodness: Enlighten the eyes of our understanding and raise our mind form the heavy sleep of slothfulness. Open our mouth and fill it with Thy praise, that we may be able undistracted to sing and chant and give thanks unto Thee, Who art God glorified in all and by all, the beginningless Father, with Thine Only-begotten Son, and Thine All-holy and good and life-creating Spirit, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

Most glorious, Ever-virgin, blessed Theoto-kos present our prayer to thy Son ad our God, and pray that through thee He would save our souls.

My hope is the Father, my refuge the Son, my shelter the Holy Spirit. O Holy Trinity, glory be to Thee.

Unto thee do I commit mine every hope, O Mother of God; guard me under thy shelter.

IT is truly meet to call thee blest, the Theotokos, the ever-blessed and all-immaculate, and Mother of our God. More honourable than the Cherubim, and beyond compare more glorious than the Seraphim, thee who without corruption gavest birth to God the Word, the very Theotokos, thee do we magnify.

FORGIVE them that hate us and do us wrong, O Lord; do good unto them that do good unto us. To our brethren and kinsmen, grant their requests that are unto salvation and life everlasting. Visit them that be in sickness, and grant them healing. Pilot them that be at sea. Accompany them that journey. Be Thou the ally of Orthodox Christians. Unto them that minister and show mercy unto us, grant forgiveness of sins. Upon them that have enjoined us, the unworthy, to pray for them, have mercy, according to Thy great mercy. Remember, O Lord, all our fathers and brethren who have gone to their rest before us, and grant them rest where the light of Thy countenance shineth. Remember, O Lord, our brethren, the captives, and deliver them from every misfortune. Remember, O Lord, them that bring oblations and do good works    in Thy holy churches, and grant them their requests that are unto salvation and life everlasting. Remember, O Lord, us also, Thy humble and sinful and unworthy servants, and enlighten our mind with the light of Thy knowledge, and lead us in the path of Thy commandments; by the intercessions of Thine all-immaculate Mother, our Lady the Theotokos and Ever-virgin Mary, and of all Thy Saints, for blessed art Thou unto all ages of ages. Amen.

THE PARYER OF SAINT EPHRAIM THE SYRIAN

This prayer is said during the Holy and Great Fast, except on Saturdays and Sundays.

O Lord and Master of my life, a spirit of idleness, curiosity, ambition, and idle talk give me not. (prostration)
But a spirit of chastity, humility, patience, and love, bestow upon me Thy servant. (prostration)
Yes, O Lord King, grant me to see mine own failings and not to condemn my brother; for blessed art Thou unto the ages of ages. Amen. (prostration)

Then we make twelve bows, after which we repeat the concluding verse of the prayer:

Yes, O Lord King, grant me to see mine own failings and not to condemn my brother; for blessed art Thou unto the ages of ages. Amen. (prostration)

And at the last, say:

Through the prayers of our holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us. Amen.

Source: Holy Transfiguration Monaster

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1. In Celebration of the Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord, the Winter Pascha

Orthodox and non-Orthodox Catholic Christians are invited to read and take to heart this archpastoral message of Metropolitan Jonah, an Episcopalian convert to the Faith of our Fathers. All will be edified by this message of love. The Feast of the Nativity is celebrated by the most traditional Orthodox Catholic Christians on December 25 according to the ancient Christian calender, the Julian Calendar, which is 13 days behind the new Gregorian (new) Calendar. Being 13 days behind the new calender means December 25 comes on January 7.  A meditative reading of His Beatitude’s letter will edify your heart and soul.

Yours truly

Archpastoral Message of His Beatitude, Metropolitan Jonah for the Nativity of Christ 2009

Posted 12/25
To the Very Reverend and Reverend Clergy,
Monastics, and Faithful of
The Orthodox Church in America

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Christ is Born! Glorify Him!

We rejoice in the coming of the Savior, the Advent of the Son of God into this broken world. His Nativity anticipates and prefigures His Second and Glorious Coming again in the flesh, not clothed in the swaddling bands of humility, for but a few years; but in the radiant vesture of the Kingdom to reign forever.

For us Orthodox Christians, the Nativity of Christ is the Winter Pascha, and our celebration is rooted in the liturgical life of the Church; the world’s “Xmas” hymns go on and on, oblivious, rather intentionally, to the point of the celebration. While we enjoy the worldly celebration, the family time, the gifts and giving, these are empty if we miss the central celebration itself: the services of the Nativity, culminating in receiving the Holy Mysteries. We can have Christmas without the Nativity, as does the world; but for Christians the Feast of the Nativity is Christmas!

We pray and fast to prepare ourselves for forty days before Christmas not only to be obedient to the Church, but to prepare ourselves to receive the Mystery of Communion. Will this Christmas be unto salvation, discerning and receiving His Body–that same Body born of Mary and laid in the Manger, the Son of God who has taken flesh and likened himself to us, so that He might liken us to Himself? Or do we judge ourselves, unaware or oblivious to the Mystery of Christ’s assumption of our nature. We pray and fast to open our spiritual eyes, so that we can see Christ, discern Christ, know Christ–not just as a historical figure who taught nice things, but as God who has come and will come again.

The traditional Christmas carols talk about Baby Jesus lying in the manger. Let us contemplate this mystery during this season, a mystery that at that time only His Mother really understood: that this little infant, no different than any other, would become the Savior of the world, and redeem mankind, indeed all of creation, from death. What infinite potential, the potential of a man fulfilling the Divine Likeness, and manifesting God in His flesh, was invested in that little child. Who would have thought that a child born in the most destitute poverty and anonymity would become the criterion of judgment for the whole world?

We can also contemplate this same mystery in the life of every child. Who knows what the destiny of that child will be? Who can tell if he or she will become a point of hope for the whole world? That same infinite potential, the potential for deification, the potential for a life transfigured by God, the potential for a life that will bring joy and peace, or beget such a child?

The Feast of the Nativity is not only the contemplation of God taking human flesh. It is also the great celebration of humanity, that God so loved as to become one of us, that through that One, joy and peace and salvation may be given to the whole world. Let us treasure the life of every child, who is the image of Christ born of the Virgin, and remember the great calling which he or she, and each of us, has in God. Let us also remember that the ultimate fulfillment of that calling is found in the transformation of our very flesh, in which God became incarnate, that having become man for our sake, He enables us to partake of His Divinity on that glorious day of His coming again in the flesh.

With love in the Newborn Lord,

+JONAH
Archbishop of Washington
Metropolitan of All America and Canada

Source: Orthodox Church in America

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