They have the unmitigated gall to wash their own hands of the innocent blood, while compelling their employees to carry out the dirty deeds.
They don't think God sees what they are doing. Fr. Rutler has new for them, God has seen it all before.
by Fr. George W. Rutler
March 8, 2009
The Spirit that “drove” Jesus into the desert to be tempted by Satan (Mark 1:12) is the Third Person of the Most Holy Trinity, the bond of love between God the Father and God the Son. Christ was tempted three times as an act of love to prepare his Church for three temptations which would assault her in every generation.
Satan tested Christ to figure out if he truly was divine: “If you are the Son of God . .. .” So Satan also tempts the Church, not to discern her holiness as the Body of Christ, but to test whether Christians will be faithful to that holiness.
Satan first tempts the Church to turn stones into bread: to reduce the Church to a human creature devoid of supernatural charisms. The Church is the world’s greatest feeder of the poor, but unless she feeds souls, she is redundant in a materialist culture. Satan wants to replace Communion lines with bread lines, as if the Body of Christ were nothing more than temporal sustenance. But Christ is Our Saviour and not Our Philanthropist. “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you” (John 6:53).
Secondly, Satan tempts the Church to mock herself, as he wanted Jesus to jump from the pinnacle of the Temple and survive. This test will see whether Christians will take up the daily crosses of life with Christ in a broken world, or engage grace as a kind of New Age energy arrogated to ourselves without moral obedience to natural law. To fly against nature is to live in an unreal world, claiming to be Catholic without living as Catholics. Satan wants us to “take Communion” on our terms rather than “receive Communion” on Christ’s terms. St. Paul would not fly that way: “He who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks his own condemnation; and for this reason many of you are weak, and ill, and some have died” (1 Cor. 11:29-30).
Thirdly, the Church is tempted with earthly power. Cardinal Consalvi reminded Napoleon that the Church’s power is not from earthly rulers. Pius XII said that Stalin would be able to count the Church’s divisions only after he died. The two Thomases, Becket and More, made similar remonstrances with their own blood. In the history of the Church, Judas was the first to accept a government grant in exchange for doing evil. The Church is entering a time of severe testing, and she will be crucified in ways more tortuous than nails, for she will be jeered by journalists and patronized by politicians and menaced by false messiahs, but in the end the Church’s despisers will hear severe words: “You could have no power at all against me, were it not given you from above; so he who delivered me to you has the greater sin” (John 19:11).
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CARDINAL O’MALLEY AND CARITAS CHRISTI
In the growing controversy over the state contract which would require the Catholic hospital network, Caritas Christi, to engage in abortion referrals, Sean Cardinal O'Malley made the following statement in his blog on Friday, March 6th: “There has been a significant amount of public dialogue concerning my statement yesterday (as copied below) about the proposed arrangement involving Caritas Christi Health Care with the Commonwealth Care program. To be perfectly clear, Caritas Christi would never do anything to promote abortions, to direct any patients to providers of abortion or in any way to participate in actions that are contrary to Catholic moral teaching and anyone who suggests otherwise is doing a great disservice to the Catholic Church.”
Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comments: “Sadly, the Cardinal’s assertions are directly contradicted by the statement issued by the Caritas Christi/Centene Corporation partnership on February 26th, which said it ‘will contract with providers, both in and out of the Caritas network, to ensure access to all services required by the Authority, including confidential family planning services.’ That statement has never been withdrawn.”
“The Health Connector Authority, which is the Massachusetts state agency which administers the Commonwealth Care program, has stated that: ‘All health plans in Commonwealth Care offer the same health benefits.’ Those benefits include abortion - with a $50 co-pay.”
“It appears that the Caritas Christi/Centene Corporation partnership was established as a fig leaf to give Caritas Christi plausible deniability while seeking a state contract which would require them to violate Catholic moral teaching. The only solution consistent with Catholic respect for the sanctity of innocent human life is for Cardinal O’Malley to insist that Caritas Christi immediately withdraw from the Commonwealth Care contract.”
1 comment:
Fr Rutler is surprising. At last a priest who is critical in a manner that is diametrically opposed to the RCIA's Social Justice. Perhaps I am wrong but the RCIA that I sometimes attend spends more time on social justice that the Sacraments. It was never social but system injustices we knew them as and we were taught and believe to practice charity would end these errors. But with all the church food banks etc where is charity practiced. Just give donations to the church food and or money and someone else does the dirty work. It is time that system evils are taken personally and acted on personally whether it be abortion birth control or euthanasia
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