On a more political note, here
are two great videos to give you something to think about in terms of what
exactly our nation and our laws have as their basis. One is the Vortex, of course; the other is a short lesson by Fr. Frank Pavone on "The Pulpit and Politics".
In the Vortex episode below
(from Nov. 6), MV explains (my emphases throughout):
Depending
on who you talk to – America was either founded as a Christian nation or it was
not – each side in this great debate maneuvering for the high ground of
controlling the past so as to influence the future.
The
truth is somewhere in the murky middle. One cannot claim that America was founded and established as a
Christian nation. That much is clear.
But
unlike the ravenous frothing secularists of contemporary culture, the idea that
the Founders were all totally detached religiously ambivalent Deists is even more
absurd.
When
the evidence is surveyed, what seems the most realistic picture is that belief
in a God was firmly held to by the founding fathers and that the religious
expression of that belief tended to be more Christian than anything else.
Noting that the philosophical views underlying the American
War of Independence had their roots in the thought of Hobbes and Locke and other
Enlightenment philosophers, MV points out that:
It was their thinking and writings that would in part
inspire the revolution in France that overthrew the Catholic monarchy the eldest daughter of the Church.
Those
ideas that were the hallmarks of the French Revolution – Equality, Fraternity
and Liberty – were already thick in the air before the storming of the Bastille
or the shot heard round the world in Lexington and Concord.
From
a Catholic perspective, there are
some difficulties here. If…religion is seen as a support to greater freedoms of
which man can aspire (like liberty, equality and fraternity), then religion
becomes a tool to be used to advance those goals. And what exactly do those goals mean? What exactly is meant by liberty,
for example? Liberty to do what, precisely? Certainly, a liberty to own slaves
wasn’t totally ruled out of bounds.
And
when we expand this question to the Declaration of Independence where we find
the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness – how “all-out” can
that pursuit of happiness extend? And what
is meant by happiness – “reproductive
freedom”, “equality” in marriage?
And who exactly gets to decide what these
terms mean – are they unchanging or are they fungible?
When
Lincoln lauds the government of the people by the people and for the people in
his Gettysburg address – did he consider what
happens if the people become morally corrupt?
Read the full script here.
See the script here.
The video with Fr. Frank Pavone was accompanied by this “blurb”:
In
this video you will learn the total number of Churches which have had their
tax-exempt status removed thanks to what was said in the pulpit or printed in
the bulletin or handed out to the Congregation. It’s a number you’ll want to
share with your pastor!
In this video you will also learn how long Churches have been prohibited from intervening in elections (it’s not as long as many think), and you’ll also learn how long Churches have been tax-exempt (it’s much longer than many think).
And there’s a simple fact about the tax-exemption of Churches that many pastors don’t seem to know, and it’s part of the reason that they should stop worrying that the IRS just can’t wait to yank that exemption from them.
Friends, we are living in a climate of unnecessary fear and trembling, caused by self-imposed gag orders that have nothing to do with the laws of the United States!
Like my friend John Ensor has written, “God did not rescue us from sin and death to build a community of nervous chipmunks ever sniffing the air for potential danger. He sealed our lives with his own death-defying Spirit so that we might act in kind.”
In this video you will also learn how long Churches have been prohibited from intervening in elections (it’s not as long as many think), and you’ll also learn how long Churches have been tax-exempt (it’s much longer than many think).
And there’s a simple fact about the tax-exemption of Churches that many pastors don’t seem to know, and it’s part of the reason that they should stop worrying that the IRS just can’t wait to yank that exemption from them.
Friends, we are living in a climate of unnecessary fear and trembling, caused by self-imposed gag orders that have nothing to do with the laws of the United States!
Like my friend John Ensor has written, “God did not rescue us from sin and death to build a community of nervous chipmunks ever sniffing the air for potential danger. He sealed our lives with his own death-defying Spirit so that we might act in kind.”
This video would be a very good one to share with your pastor! (Sorry, I do not have a script, and don't have the time to transcribe!)
The decay and collapse of America was and is inevitable, given that her founding Fathers were inspired by Freemasonry and not Our Lord. A house built on sand cannot stand.... Catholics in America need to realize that the men who created their country were deeply flawed (albeit brilliant) men.
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