I am working on an article for Irish American News with a deadline of March 15th. The article will appear in the April edition of Cliff Carlson's Irish American News (IAN -On-Line: http://www.irishamericannews.com/ and the topic is the war on faith resulting from secularism as the new government Church opposed to any religious belief, Catholic in particular.
I will talk about the English anti-Catholic laws of the 17th Century and how Catholic gentry, desiring to maintain their economic and political status, abandoned the faith.
In discussing the current conflict, I will parallel the Catholic politician, largely Democrat, who needs votes, money and muscle to maintain his/her political power. Last Fall, the pot in Illinois boiled over, when Governor Quinn who signed the Religious Liberty and Civil Unions Bill into law also stood with Illinois Personal PAC - Planned Parenthood's political treasury which supports not only the move to universal government funded abortion and contraception, but also re-constructs marriage.
Governor Quinn, like Senator Durbin and many other GOP and Democratic elected officials, took the vague tag of Christian, when confronted by Illinois Catholic Bishops led by Francis Cardinal George, Archbishop of Chicago.
Like the 17th Centry Squire Quinn of BallyQuinn Ireland, Governor Pat Quinn maintained his place as a Progressive Democrat. Faith is such a antiquated thing to so many of the evolved affluent, educated professionals free of the ghetto walls of faith. Many such Catholic spawned folks shed the skin of doctrine and catechetical rigors for situational ethics and know that they know better than the Wafer Catholics.
In my article I will feature chats with three very well-educated, sophisticated, articulate, yet to the Progressive very unevolved Catholic leaders. They are churchmen - Father Anthony Brankin, a musician, sculptor and Irish traditionalist priests, Francis Cardinal George of Chicago who has taken more punches from the secular evolved media, academics, and elected officials than Billy Conn in his loss to Joe Louis, and finally an exclusive interview with Timothy Cardinal Dolan of New York, President of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
As part of the protocol, I requested the interview through the Archdiocese NYC Office of Communications and was graced with a call from the Office of Delegate for Health Care - Karl P. Adler M.D. I spoke with Dr. Adler's delightful secretary yesterday afternoon, Ms. Sandy. Ms. Sandy is of Scots-Irish descent and married to Welshman from South Carolina.
Talk about diversity.
Ms. Sandy sent me an article following our chat about the HHS Contraception Mandate by the Obama White House. Her boss, Dr. Karl Adler, has been at Cardinal Dolan's side all through this defense of religious liberty. We talked about faith. I'm a Catholic, by birth and, in my much battered post-middle age, by choice.
Our coreligionists, the Jews, managed to thrive during two thousand years of persecution at the hands of Protestants, Catholics, Muslims, Pagans and,since Hegel, Nietzsche and John Dewey The Progressives. The Progressive Soviets and Nazis fell far short of exterminating God's Chosen People with the blood and hearts of Protestants, Catholics and more than few atheists. The consistent ethic of Judeo Christian culture is and has been genuine love, charity, courage, conviction, and common sense.
From the Jews we Catholics should learn more about conviction, holding onto faith, in order to survive as human beings and especially now as a Church.
Yesterday was the start of the religious Feast of Purim. Ms. Sandy sent this to me.
Office of Delegate for Health Care
Archdiocese of New York
1011 First Avenue
New York, NY 10022
Pat,
Tomorrow is Purim*, well actually after sundown this evening. NYC is a very Catholic town, it is also very Jewish. I read this article and thought of the Jewishness of Catholics the HHS mandate and how Jews came to be called Jews
(empasis my own)
The Holiday When We Became Jewish
By Naftali Silberberg
What is the significance of the name "Jew"? Where does the word come from and what does it mean?
The word Jew (Yehudi in the Hebrew) is a derivative of the name Judah (Yehudah),Jacob's fourth son; hence calling someone by this name would seemingly imply that the person is a descendant of that particular tribe. However, as is well known, Jacob had twelve sons, progenitors of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, all of whom comprise our great nation. Why, then, is the entire Israelite nation known as "Jews"?
(The conventional answer to this question is that the majority of Jews today are descendant from the tribes of Judah and Benjamin-—the two tribes which comprised the "Kingdom of Judea." The other ten tribes, the members of the "Northern Kingdom," were exiled to unknown lands. There must, however, be a deeper reason for the fact that the Chosen Nation has been called by this name for close to 2500 years!)
Perhaps this question can be cleared up by analyzing the very first individual to be dubbed "Jew." The first instance of this word appears in the biblical Book of Esther, which chronicles the story of Purim: "There was a Jewish man in Shushan the capital, whose name was Mordechai the son of Yair... a Benjaminite" (Esther 2:5).
That's right: the first "Jew" was actually from the tribe of Benjamin!
An objective study of the Purim story reveals that the whole frightening episode was plainly avoidableAn objective study of the Purim story reveals that the whole frightening episode was plainly avoidable. The entire incident was a result of Mordechai's obstinate adherence to a code of behavior which was clearly outdated and inappropriate for the times. Mordechai was an elderly rabbi who yet recalled days – more than half a century beforehand – when the Holy Temple stood in Jerusalem and Torah Law was supreme. His snubbing of Haman might have been condign during that generation. But things had changed dramatically. The people of Israel were in exile. How did Mordechai dare put his entire nation in danger of extinction by slighting the king's favorite minister? Apparently someone neglected to inform this sage that the ability to conform is the key to survival...
Mordechai, however, thought otherwise; and he had a famous precedent supporting his "foolish" actions. Many years earlier, a powerful Egyptian ruler wished to take his ancestor, Benjamin, as a slave. Benjamin's brother Judah wouldn't hear of such a possibility. In what would be his proudest and most defining moment, Judah completely ignored all royal protocol, angrily approached the powerful ruler – who, unbeknownst to him, was actually their brother Joseph – and threateningly demanded Benjamin's release.Judah is the embodiment of the exiled Israelite who must walk a thin line: While he must live at peace with his neighbors, follow the laws and customs of the land, and "pray for the peace of the regime," he has the courage of his convictions to stand up against all the powers that be in order to defend his ideals. In the words of Rabbi Sholom DovBer of Lubavitch, "Only our bodies were sent into exile; not our souls!"
Mordechai "the Jew" was a proud student of his great-uncle Judah. He knew that Torah law forbids a Jew from bowing to Haman (and the statuette which dangled from a chain around his neck), and for him that was the final word. Indeed, Judah's and Mordechai's actions were vindicated as events unfolded--no harm came to either of them as a result of their brave conduct.
Judah is the embodiment of the exiled Israelite who must walk a thin line. Leading by example, Mordechai succeeded in implanting this sense of pride in the hearts of the masses. When Haman issued his decree of annihilation, not one Israelite even considered abandoning his religion in order to be spared death. At that moment, we all became "Jews." Accordingly, the Book of Esther is the first place where our nation as a whole is referred to as Jews.
The name stuck. Because the next 2,500 years would repeatedly test our "Jewishness." Under countless regimes – both friendly and, as was usually the case, hostile – we struggled against friends and enemies who wished to impose their will upon us at the expense of our relationship with G‑d. Again and again we proved ourselves true to G‑d, earning the name Jew through oceans of blood and tears.
The grand story of history concludes in similar fashion as the Purim story: we are here to tell the tale and our enemies aren't... The joy of Purim is greater than any other holiday because it tells the story of the nation who never allowed its soul to be shackled--the story of the Jew.
Judah completely ignored all royal protocol, angrily approached the powerful ruler – who, unbeknownst to him, was actually their brother Joseph – and threateningly demanded Benjamin's release - Cardinals George and Dolan and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops have determined to no longer 'go-along-to-get-along. Survival means coniction. This Purim, this Lent, we should try and meditate on what it means submit to royal mandates. In order to live one must be will to object and if needs be take punishment and perhaps death.
Catholics - be like Jews. They don't survive; they live.
The Irish celebrated the outlawed Eucharist on rocks in the wilderness with outlawed priests. Squire Quinn of Bally-Quinn kept his houses, lands, titles, horses and dogs. Call that living?
*The festival of Purim is celebrated every year on the 14th of the Hebrew month of Adar (late winter/early spring). It commemorates the salvation of the Jewish people in ancient Persia from Haman’s plot “to destroy, kill and annihilate all the Jews, young and old, infants and women, in a single day.”
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