On February 25, 2018, the Brazilian-based Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira Institute sent a letter to Joseph Cardinal Zen Ze-kiun in support of the heroic persecuted Catholics of the underground Church in China.

The text of the letter can be found below. Those who wish to add their name to this letter of support may do so at this link.

His Eminence Joseph Cardinal Zen Ze-kiun

Your Eminence,

The Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira Institute, a civic association that continues the work of the distinguished professor whose name it bears, and its co-signing autonomous sister organizations around the world work to defend the perennial values of Christian civilization. Their directors, members, and supporters are Roman Catholics who fight the onslaught of communism and socialism.

The fundamentally anticommunist position that results from the Catholic convictions of our organizations has been reinvigorated by the heroic resistance of the “underground Church” faithful to Rome. Its bishops, priests and millions of Catholics refuse to submit to the so-called Patriotic Church, schismatic in relation to Rome, and entirely submissive to the central power of Beijing.

“Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Mt. 5:10); “If the world hate you, know ye, that it hath hated me before you. If you had been of the world, the world would love its own: but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you” (Jn. 15:18-19).

Quoting these divine words of Our Lord Jesus Christ, we express our admiration for the sole Catholic Church in China, today under the Communist boot, of which Your Eminence is a distinguished member and spokesman. We see these persecuted Catholics as brothers in the Faith to whom is addressed the 1974 Resistance Declaration authored by the eminent Brazilian Catholic leader Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira (1908-1995), founder of the Brazilian Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property and inspirer of autonomous TFPs and sister organizations throughout the world. That document is titled “The Vatican Policy of Détente with Communist Governments – Should the TFPs Stand Down? Or Should They Resist?” (see attached).

As Your Eminence can read in this 1974 Declaration, Vatican diplomacy in both Eastern Europe and Latin America pursued a devious policy of rapprochement with communist regimes that was severely detrimental to true Catholics and would result in subjecting the Holy Catholic Church to the red despots.

On April 7, 1974, the press in South America’s largest city (Cf. O Estado de São Paulo) reported on an interview by Archbishop Agostino Casaroli asserting that “Catholics are happy in the socialist regime” that Castro’s communists imposed on the unfortunate island of Cuba. Archbishop Casaroli went on to say that “the Cuban Catholic Church and its spiritual guide always seek to avoid creating any problem to the socialist government that rules the island.”

These statements by the high-ranking Vatican envoy—which coincided with the positions of other prelates who collaborated with communism—painfully surprised and caused moral trauma among Catholics faithful to the immutable social and economic doctrine taught by Leo XIII, Pius XI and Pius XII. This Ostpolitik, as it became known, was a source of perplexity and anguish and aroused a most profound and poignant drama in many souls. Indeed, over and above social and economic questions, it involves what is most fundamental, vibrant, and tender in the soul of a Roman Catholic, his spiritual union with the Vicar of Jesus Christ.

The Vatican policy of rapprochement with Communist governments raised a supremely embarrassing doubt: Is it licit for Catholics not to move in the direction indicated by the Holy See? Is it licit for them to stop resisting communism?

We are now going through a similar but even more dangerous situation with the Vatican policy toward the so-called Patriotic Church submissive to Beijing.

In fact, the Catholic world is shocked by the recent visit to China of a Vatican delegation led by Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli. While there, on behalf of Pope Francis, he asked the legitimate shepherds of the dioceses of Shantou and Mindong to hand over their dioceses and flock to illegitimate bishops appointed by the communist government and separated from the Holy See.

The words of Archbishop Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo, Chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, known as a close advisor to the Holy Father, arrived as a terrifying and amplified repetition of Archbishop Casaroli’s statements in Cuba. According to the Turin daily La Stampa of February 2, he affirmed: “At this moment, the Chinese are those who best implement the social doctrine of the Church…. The Chinese seek the common good, subordinate things to the general good.”

After visiting a country crushed by a dictatorship even more ruthless than the Cuban one, Archbishop Sánchez Sorondo, like Archbishop Casaroli, stated: “I found an extraordinary China; what people do not know is that the central Chinese principle is work, work, work. I found no shantytowns, you do not have drugs, young people do not take drugs…. [China] is defending the dignity of the person….”

He did not say a word about the religious persecution that communists inflict on our brethren in the Faith, on imprisoned bishops, priests, and faithful, or on the systematic and universal violation of the fundamental rights of man, created in the image and likeness of God.

The controversial and false assertions of this high-ranking Vatican prelate go far beyond the statements by Archbishop Casaroli in Cuba in that remote year of 1974. And they hurt the upright Christian conscience even more.

The current drama of Chinese Catholics is also that of all faithful wishing to persevere as they face the Communist Leviathan. Yesterday and today, pressured by the Holy See’s diplomacy to accept an iniquitous agreement with the communist regime, they face this excruciating problem of conscience: Is it licit to say no to the Vatican Ostpolitik and to continue resisting communism even unto martyrdom if necessary?

In the abovementioned 1974 Resistance Declaration, Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira affirmed (without having received any objection from Paul VI or any successor Pope) that it is not only licit but even a duty to imitate Saint Paul’s attitude of resistance toward Saint Peter, the first Pope:

“‘Resistance’ is the word we choose purposely, for it is employed in the Acts of the Apostles by the Holy Ghost Himself to characterize the attitude of Saint Paul toward Saint Peter, the first Pope, who had taken disciplinary measures to sustain some practices from the old Synagogue in Catholic worship. Saint Paul saw in this a grave risk of doctrinal confusion and harm for the faithful. He then stood up against Saint Peter and “resisted him to the face” (Gal. 2: 11). In this zealous and inspired action of the Apostle of the Gentiles, Saint Peter did not see an act of rebellion, but rather one of union and fraternal love. Knowing well in what he was infallible and in what he was not, Saint Peter submitted to the arguments of Saint Paul. The Saints are models for Catholics. Accordingly, in the sense in which Saint Paul resisted, our state is one of resistance.

To resist means that we will advise Catholics to continue to struggle against the communist doctrine with every licit means in the defense of their threatened countries and Christian civilization.

To resist means that we will never use the unworthy resources of sedition nor, much less, take attitudes inconsistent with the veneration and obedience due to the Supreme Pontiff according to the terms of Canon Law.

The Church is not, the Church never was, the Church never will be such a prison for consciences. The bond of obedience to the successor of Peter, which we will never break, which we love in the most profound depths of our soul, and to which we tribute our highest love, this bond we kiss at the very moment in which, overwhelmed with sorrow, we affirm our position. And on our knees, gazing with veneration at the figure of His Holiness Paul VI, we express all our fidelity to him.

In this filial act, we say to the Pastor of Pastors: Our soul is yours, our life is yours. Order us to do whatever you wish. Only do not order us to do nothing in face of the assailing red wolf. To this, our conscience is opposed.”

In the 1970s, we were also happy to see in the glorious ranks of the Chinese episcopate the fearless resistance of Your Eminence’s illustrious fellow countryman, Paul Cardinal Yü Pin, then archbishop of Nanjing and dean of the Catholic University of Taipei, Taiwan (Cf. The Herald of Freedom, Feb. 15, 1974, quoting a release from the Religious News Service).

Cardinal Yü Pin told the agency above (and Your Eminence confirms this) that it would be an illusion to expect Communist China to change its anti-religious policy.

Proof comes from none other than President Xi Jinping, who, at the 19^th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, emphasized that, “culture should be harnessed to the cause of socialism and following the guidance of Marxism” and, because of that, “Religion must also be ‘Chinese in orientation’ and guided by the party to adapt to socialist society” (The Washington Post, Oct. 18, 2017).

Returning to Cardinal Yü Pin, he added, forty years ago, “We want to remain faithful to the perennial values ​​of international justice … The Vatican can act otherwise, but that would not move us much. I think it is an illusion to hope that a dialogue with Beijing would help Christians on the (Chinese) continent…. The Vatican is obtaining nothing for Christians in Eastern Europe…. If the Vatican cannot protect religion, it has no reason to pursue this matter.…We want to remain faithful to our mandate but are victims of communist repression. With this rapprochement (between the Vatican and Communist China) we would lose our freedom. As Chinese we must fight for our freedom.”

To these lucid and vigorous observations reminiscent of St. Paul’s “I resisted him (St. Peter) to his face” (Gal. 2:11), Cardinal Yü Pin added this moving remark: “There is an underground Church in China. The Church in China will survive just as the early Christians survived in the catacombs, and this could mean a true Christian rebirth to the Chinese.”

Accordingly, the Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira Institute, its co-signing autonomous sister-organizations around the world, and the thousands of individual Catholics signing on to this message of moral support, hereby,

1. Express to Your Eminence, to the whole hierarchy, clergy and faithful of the underground Catholic Church in China their admiration and moral solidarity at this time when it is urgent to build resistance to the communist Moloch and the Vatican’s The bishops and priests of the persecuted underground Church in China who are now resisting stand before the world as living symbols of the “good shepherd who gives his life for his sheep.”
2. Affirm that they draw strength and invincible hope from the epic example of the martyrs persevering in China. Their Catholic souls acclaim these noble victims: Tu gloria Jerusalem, tu laetitia Israel, tu honorificentia populi nostri (Judith 15:10). These martyrs are the glory of the Church, the joy of the faithful, the honor of those who continue the sacrosanct struggle.
3. Raise their prayers to Our Lady of China so that She may, with motherly care, help and encourage her Chinese children, who are struggling to remain faithful despite these cruel and hostile circumstances.

São Paulo, February 25th February 2018

Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira Institute

The post Letter to Cardinal Zen first appeared on The Irish Machabean.

In her speech, which was widely reported in the media, Minister Zappone pontificated about how the Catholic Church should conduct itself, especially in relation to the World Meeting of Families, to take place in Dublin later this year.

She warned the Church that “LGBTI families, like all families, should be celebrated and not excluded,” saying: “that’s the message that should be coming not just from the World Meeting of Families…” Etc.

The minister seems to think that it is within her jurisdiction to make proclamations on what the message of the Church should be.

In the same vein, after mentioning people who are discriminated against, threatened and abused, she said: “The World Meeting of Families is a unique opportunity to confront such inequality, discrimination and hate. It can provide global leadership on inclusion.”

She expressed hope that the World Meeting of Families would “not be used as a platform for remarks which exclude, isolate or hurt any family.”

Remarks which exclude, isolate or hurt any family!!!

Did Ms. Zappone stop to consider whether her own remarks might have excluded, isolated or hurt any family?

Whether made wittingly or not, Minister Zappone’s statement expresses an attitude that is dangerous to public discourse in a free society.

Of course, except in the modern false conception of the dynamics of public debate, remarks per se don’t have the capacity to exclude or isolate.

They can hurt, yes! But even that is a reaction to the remarks – not necessarily an objective result of the remarks themselves. Those who make the remarks are not usually responsible for how others react to them.

These days much public discussion is restricted in order to rule out any remarks that might be hurtful. This concept has even crept into legislation leading to an anomalous situation where the legality or otherwise of one’s words depends on how those who hear them react.

In other words, something you say can become illegal retroactively.

This thinking favours totalitarianism, as what is offensive or hurtful can be decided on the hoof. It doesn’t need to be defined during the legislative process, and thus is open to subjective interpretation afterwards.

It is not surprising that this quasi-totalitarian way of looking at speech is supported by a minister in the current Irish government.

So, could Ms. Zappone’s remarks be exclusionary, isolating or hurtful?

It seems that she used her platform in the Danish parliament to exclude and isolate certain families – those that accept and try to uphold the perennial teachings of the Catholic Church, especially its teaching on homosexuality, which hasn’t changed in spite of Ms. Zappone’s pronouncements.

Could any such families have been hurt by her remarks? Assuming that any bothered to listen to her, they could have found her remarks hurtful.

The tone of Ms. Zappone’s speech was one of antagonism towards the Catholic Church. In it she denounced the exclusion of “our former president Mary McAleese from an event in the Vatican, together with the airbrushing out of images of LGBTI families from certain church literature related to the event (the World Meeting of Families)” as a source of serious concern.

As if the mission of the Church was to promote the “LGBT” agenda!

“All aspects of our public life must be inclusive. There should be a welcome for all. And never again should public statements or remarks which seek to isolate certain families be tolerated,” Ms. Zappone declared in a statement that contradicts itself, since her whole tone is one of rejection for anyone who follows the teachings of the Catholic Church, or indeed of most Christian denominations.

The minister also spoke about how: “equality is hard-fought, difficult to achieve, but more importantly it is also very fragile. As campaigners, as activists and as governments, we must ensure that no gathering, group or individual is ever allowed to undermine these rights.”

In other words, one side gets to define “equality” and what it means to “undermine these rights.” And if we understand her point correctly, one of the roles of government is to clamp down on dissenting opinions and to shut down all opposition – effectively to prohibit public debate.

That someone who promotes this notion could hold a ministry in the Irish government really is “a source of serious concern.”

Not even the Pope can hope to wield such authority.

The post Zappone Assumes Papal Authority first appeared on The Irish Machabean.

Politicians with little grounding in political science tend to think that letting the people decide on every subject is the ultimate expression of democracy.

Thus, members of the Oireachtas who are minded to vote against holding a referendum will be accused of being undemocratic by some of their peers, the media and by some sectors of the public.

They could be vehemently opposed to abortion and yet, in a sort of self-accusation, feel that it is undemocratic to deprive the public of the opportunity to settle the matter.

It need not be so.

That it is somehow undemocratic or anti-democratic to oppose holding a referendum is a false idea. It is based on a misconception about democracy.

Please sign the Petition against putting the Right to Life of the Unborn to a Vote

Democracy is a system of government by the whole population through elected representatives.

Nobody believes that public representatives, by virtue of being elected, have unlimited rights to do as they will. Most politicians, themselves, are not too sure about the extent and limits of their authority.

That is why politicians often talk about consensus as if it were synonymous with democracy.

Thus, confusion arises between the two concepts: democracy as a form of government; and a consensus that determines the norms of human behaviour.

Consensus is often a substitute for democracy. The false notion about consensus threatens public discourse and cripples opposition parties.

Not every question can or should be decided by the people. The people cannot impose arbitrary laws. Neither can a government, and it must look to some higher authority to discern the limits of its own power. Some problems are beyond the scope of government to resolve.

Natural rights do not come from the State, or from the people. Nor can they be abrogated by the State or the people.

Please sign the Petition against putting the Right to Life of the Unborn to a Vote

Even the most ardent supporters of a referendum on abortion would have their own topics on which they would find a public vote unacceptable.

It is not difficult to imagine issues on which almost nobody in the Oireachtas, or in society, would support holding a referendum.

An example that comes to mind is: making newly arrived migrants work in sweatshops for five years. Would anyone dread being labelled undemocratic for not wanting a referendum on this issue?

We think not.

Neither the Oireachtas, nor the media, nor the majority of the public would worry about being called anti-democratic for treating such an outrageous proposal with the scorn it merits.

It would rob its victims of five years of their lives.

Soon a recommendation will be laid before the Oireachtas that will take, not merely five years but, the entire lives of its intended victims – the unborn.

As medical science advances, as man’s pride in his ability to solve the great problems of the world increases, our Oireachtas members will be asked to approve a retrograde scheme to subject the most fundamental of natural rights of the most defenceless members of society to a referendum.

Please sign the Petition against putting the Right to Life of the Unborn to a Vote

How many of them would approve a referendum rather than be labelled undemocratic?

How many will have the courage to vote for what they know is right despite whatever labels might be applied to them?

If a referendum goes ahead, the people will be asked to entrust this important life or death issue to the exclusive control of the government and Oireachtas. On what other matter have we ceded such control?

We will also be asked to facilitate, for the first time in the history of the Irish State, the removal of a natural right – the right to life of the unborn – from the constitution.

Let us hope that those members of the Oireachtas who believe it is wrong to subject the right to life to a vote will have the courage of their convictions.

Please sign this petition against subjecting the right to life of the unborn to a vote. It will be sent to the members of the Oireachtas. We hope it will be a support to those who oppose holding a referendum on abortion, and that it will encourage the others to do the right thing.

The post Is Opposing Referenda Anti-democratic? first appeared on The Irish Machabean.

If a woman talks about abortion being a woman’s right to choose, while we disagree with her, we don’t usually doubt her sincerity in believing it.

We are a bit more sceptical, however, when a man is found pushing abortion in the name of this “right.”

When it is a male politician who affirms such a right we are inclined to believe – if you’ll pardon our cynicism about pro-abortion politicians – that it is a mere platitude with which he hopes to impress the female voters in his constituency.

Other male pro-abortion advocates may feel that supporting a “woman’s right to choose” makes them appear altruistic, even chivalrous.

But how chivalrous are such men?

Is supporting a “woman’s right to choose” to kill her own baby really liberating her from the oppressive mores of society, as the pro-abortion lobby would have us believe?

Or does it impose undue responsibility for the death of the unborn child on the mother, along with all the consequences of that burden?

Rather than providing the much needed support for a woman with a difficult pregnancy, giving her “the right to choose” absolves men – at least in their own imagination – from any moral responsibility for killing the unborn child.

It is no wonder that men proclaim this particular women’s “right” more often than women do.

Please sign the Petition against putting the Right to Life of the Unborn to a Vote

Meanwhile this supposed right to choose abandons women to face the difficult situation alone.

We are not suggesting that women are completely abandoned to make the decision in lonely isolation. But men, by imposing the burden of “choice” on them, do condemn them to live in lonely isolation with the consequences of abortion.

It is women who suffer the terrible side effects of abortion. Women are hurt by abortion, both psychologically and physically. Abortion is one of the most common causes of maternal mortality (http://www.theunchoice.com/unsafedeath.htm).

It is a notorious fact that many men keep their options open on the decision, even while professing their belief in a woman’s right to choose. Men can coerce women into having an abortion and then, like Pontius Pilate, wash their hands of any culpability.

Does this really happen?

An article on the website of the Population Research Institute (https://www.pop.org/many-american-women-felt-pressured-abortions-study-finds/) cites a recent study published in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons that claims over 70% of American women who have had abortions felt pressured into aborting their unborn child.

Various forms of pressure were referenced in the study, including feeling the need to make others happy, and the fear that their partner would abandon them. The latter fear was involved in 30% of the abortions covered by the survey.

These claims are supported by anecdotal evidence.

For example, in his essay: The Frivolity of Evil, Theodore Dalrymple gives an insight into a phenomenon he encountered regularly as a medical doctor in England.

Referring to the father of the third child of one of his patients Dr Dalrymple wrote that: “a week after their child was born he decided he no longer wished to live with her. (The discovery of incompatibility a week after the birth of a child is now so common as to be statistically normal.)” (1)

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Dr Dalrymple writes elsewhere of the many cases in which the reaction of a man to a pregnancy in his girlfriend is to beat her up, which “occasionally produces a miscarriage,” (2) suggesting that frequently the man’s principal contribution to an unwanted pregnancy is the “unwanted” part.

The mainstream media under-report this problem, except in highly sensational cases, giving the impression that it is much less common than it is.

Men frequently bully women into “choosing” abortion and then hypocritically trumpet their support for a “woman’s right to choose.” They might even sleep with an easy conscience afterwards. It is, after all, the women who elect to have abortions. Isn’t it?

Is there any other circumstance in which we are expected to take self-declared altruism at face value? If a politician or a rich business owner claims to care for the poor, wouldn’t we examine his claim closely before accepting it?

Let’s be equally circumspect about men who claim to support a woman’s right to choose.

Please sign the Petition against putting the Right to Life of the Unborn to a Vote

1. Dalrymple, T., Our Culture, What’s Left of It, p 10
2. Ibid., p 235-236

The post Man’s Right to Choose first appeared on The Irish Machabean.

Yesterday’s Irish Daily Mail front page was headlined “LEO: HORROR CASES LED ME TO CHANGE MIND ON ABORTION.” We wonder if the Taoiseach is aware of the horror that every abortion is for the unborn child, whose life is brutally snatched away.

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The charade continued with a display of profound and probably wilful ignorance about the provisions in the Irish Constitution for calling a referendum.

It was widely reported in Ireland and internationally that the Government has decided to hold a referendum to repeal the Eighth Amendment. Here are some sample headlines:

“Cabinet agrees to summer vote on replacing Eighth” (Irish Times)

“How Ireland’s decision to hold an abortion referendum is being reported around the world” (Irish Independent)

“The government has agreed to hold a referendum on repealing the Eighth Amendment” (http://www.thejournal.ie/poll-repeal-eighth-amendment-3823539-Jan2018/)

But is this so?

Article 15.2.1 of the Constitution reads:

“The sole and exclusive power of making laws for the State is hereby vested in the Oireachtas: no other legislative authority has power to make laws for the State.”

The Government, by contrast, “shall be responsible to Dáil Éireann,” according to Article 28.4.1 of the Constitution.

Article 28.2 states that:

“The executive power of the State shall, subject to the provisions of this Constitution, be exercised by or on the authority of the Government.”

“The Government… shall be collectively responsible for the Departments of State administered by the members of the Government.” (Article 28.4.2) This, along with the preparation of Estimates of Receipt and Expenditure of the State (Article 28.4.3) and a limited role in defensive wars (Article 28.3.2) are the main functions of the Government as set out in the Constitution.

Nothing about calling referenda is to be found in the section of the Constitution on Government.

Article 46.2 of the Constitution reads:

“Every proposal for an amendment of this Constitution shall be initiated in Dáil Éireann as a Bill, and shall upon having been passed or deemed to have been passed by both Houses of the Oireachtas, be submitted by Referendum to the decision of the people in accordance with the law for the time being in force relating to the Referendum.”

In other words, the Government doesn’t get to decide on a referendum. The Oireachtas does.

Please sign the Petition against putting the Right to Life of the Unborn to a Vote

In fact, the Government has not decided to hold a referendum. It has decided to push for a repeal of the Eighth Amendment. And it has decided to play along with the impression that it has the power to call a referendum.

As one would expect, the media reports were not contested by the Government. Why would they be? The executive branch relishes the idea of being able to usurp the powers of the legislative branch.

And the mainstream media is so excited at the prospect of abolishing the last protection of unborn life in the Constitution that it seems to be forgetting its own role. The media enjoys special privileges because it provides oversight on, among other things, government and legislation. Or, at least it is supposed to.

In this case, the false reporting of the scope of Monday’s cabinet meeting indicates a high degree of complicity in – to put it mildly – Government overreach.

For several years the Government has been encroaching on the powers of the Oireachtas. Rather than being answerable to the Oireachtas, as required by the Constitution, the executive branch is completely out of control.

Instead of providing oversight, the media is facilitating this dangerous departure from the separation of the powers of the State. Maybe someday it will look back to occasions such as this and realise that it was instrumental in its own loss of freedom and privileges.

Please sign the Petition against putting the Right to Life of the Unborn to a Vote

Meanwhile we can only hope that the Oireachtas will find the courage to defend its role and its powers against the encroachments of the executive branch.

It is the Oireachtas, not the Government, that will decide whether or not to hold a referendum. Let us hope that the majority of its members will not be prepared to subject the right to life of the unborn to a vote.

Please sign the Petition against putting the Right to Life of the Unborn to a Vote

The post Referendum Could Be Stopped first appeared on The Irish Machabean.

Minister Harris’ speech was alarming, almost as much for what he failed to mention as for what he did say.

For example, in his speech he listed, county by county, the number of women who travelled to UK to have an abortion in 2016. He remembered with sympathy the victims of rape and incest, and the families faced with so-called “fatal foetal abnormalities.”

Unlike the minister, a pro-life TD, Eamon Scanlon, expressed compassion for the children of those 3,265 women who went to UK for an abortion – children who didn’t come back – and noted that many of these women regretted ending their pregnancies, and were harmed by abortion.

Please sign the petition against the Death Referendum

Minister Harris, along with others who favour abolishing the Eighth Amendment, presents the case as if abortion were the optimal solution for a crisis pregnancy, or even the only solution.

Pro-life campaigners in Ireland and elsewhere have dedicated decades to correcting the record on this misrepresentation of reality.
Although the minister did claim to be “fully committed to ensuring that all women accessing maternity services should receive the same standard of safe, high quality care,” he failed to even give lip service to the possibility that abortion would be less than a perfect answer to an unwanted or crisis pregnancy.

Please sign the petition against the Death Referendum

From time to time one hears pro-abortion advocates lament the necessity (as they see it) of abortion, regret the number of abortions carried out, or are honest enough to admit that abortion is not an ideal in itself. For example, a recent headline on the pro-repeal site, her.ie, proclaims:

“In an ideal world, abortion would be legalised but nobody would access it”

Meanwhile, at the Oireachtas Committee, Dr Anthony McCarthy, Consultant Perinatal Psychiatrist for the National Maternity Hospital, stated: “Abortion… in an ideal world it would never be needed or requested.” (http://www.thejournal.ie/eighth-amendment-committee-5-3685935-Nov2017/ )

But neither our Minister for Health nor, as far as we are aware, any other member of the Oireachtas promoting repeal of the Eighth Amendment, expressed regret about the supposed necessity of abortion, nor about the great number of abortions carried out.

Nor do they admit that abortion is not an ideal solution.

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They gave no indication of being open to alternatives to abortion when dealing with a crisis pregnancy.

Notably, no extra resources were allocated to address the reasons women seek abortions and thus lessen the number of abortions sought. No pledge given to provide the support that a mother in a crisis pregnancy will need after her child is born.

At least, such resources and support would reduce the number of abortions, if that is something of interest to the government. It should be – unless liberalising abortion laws is an end in itself.

Referring to foetal anomalies using the propagandistic and non-medical term, “fatal foetal abnormalities,” our health minister seems to forget or ignore the fact that an unborn child with a life limiting condition is a patient, not a tumour. In what society… in what medical system, does killing the patient cure illness?

It chills the soul to think where we will end up if we start down such a path.

An unborn child, whether healthy or sick, planned or unplanned, is a human being. Let us not subject his or her right to life to a vote.

Please sign the petition against the Death Referendum

The post Future of 8th Amendment first appeared on The Irish Machabean.

While the Church on earth inaugurates these days by adorning herself with Peter’s chains as with a precious jewel, a constellation of seven stars appears for the third time in the heavens. The seven brothers Machabees preceded the sons of Symphorosa and Felicitas in the blood-stained arena; they followed divine Wisdom even before she had manifested her beauty in the flesh. The sacred cause of which they were the champions, their strength of soul under the tortures, their sublime answers to the executioners, were so evidently the type reproduced by the later Martyrs, that the Fathers of the first centuries with one accord claimed for the Christian Church these heroes of the synagogue, who could have gained such courage from no other source than their faith in the Christ to come. For this reason they alone of all the holy persons of the ancient covenant have found a place on the Christian cycle; all the Martyrologies and Calendars of East and West attest the universality of their cultus, while its antiquity is such as to rival that of St. Peter’s chains in that same basilica of Eudoxia where their precious relics lie.

At the time when in the hope of a better resurrection they refused under cruel torments to redeem their lives, other heroes of the same blood, inspired by the same faith, flew to arms and delivered their country from a terrible crisis. Several children of Israel, forgetting the traditions of their nation, had wished it to follow the customs of strange peoples ; and the Lord, in punishment, had allowed Judea to feel the whole weight of a profane rule to which it had guiltily submitted. But when king Antiochus, taking advantage of the treason of a few and the carelessness of the majority, endeavoured by his ordinances to blot out the divine law which alone gives power to man over man, Israel, suddenly awakened, met the tyrant with the double opposition of revolt and martyrdom. Judas Machabeus in immortal battles reclaimed for God the land of his inheritance, while by the virtue of their generous confession, the seven, brothers also, his rivals in glory, recovered, as the Scripture says, the law out of the hands of the nations, and out of the hands of the kings.1 Soon afterwards, craving mercy under the hand of God and not finding it, Antiochus died, devoured by worms, just as later on, were to’ die the first and last persecutors of the Christians, Herod Agrippa and Galerius Maximian.

The Holy Ghost, who would himself hand down to posterity the acts of the Protomartyr of the New Law, did the same with regard to the passion of Stephen’s glorious predecessors in the ages of expectation. Indeed it was he who then, as under the law of Love, inspired with both words and courage these valiant brothers, and their still more admirable mother, who, seeing her seven sons one after the other suffering the most horrible tortures, uttered nothing but burning exhortations to die. Surrounded by their mutilated bodies, she mocked the tyrant who, in false pity, wished her to persuade at least the youngest to save his life ; she bent over the last child of her tender love and said to him: My son, have pity upon me, that bore thee nine months in my womb, and gave thee suck three years, and nourished thee, and brought thee up unto this age. I beseech thee, my son, look upon heaven and earth, and all that is in them: and consider that God made them out of nothing and mankind also: so thou shalt not fear this tor mentor, but being made a worthy partner with thy brethren, receive death, that in that mercy I may receive thee again with thy brethren. And the intrepid youth ran in his innocence to the tortures ; and the incomparable mother followed her sons.

Taken from ‘THE LITURGICAL YEAR’ by VERY REV. DOM PROSPER GUERANGER, Abbot of Solesmes.

The post Commemoration of the Holy Machabees Martyrs first appeared on The Irish Machabean.

The fact is that normal people are not all that attracted by socialism, egalitarianism and liberalism.

But it is less unpleasant for the left to blame “fake news.” Thus Hillary Clinton lost the American presidential race because of fake news, and not because a vast number of people didn’t agree with her policies. How comforting that must be for her.

Likewise Brexit was a result of fake news, and not because people are sick of the way Europe is being run as an overbearing, over-regulated quasi dictatorship that has ignored the aspirations of the ordinary European people for far too long.

The Italian referendum, also.

Like many such phenomena promoted by the left, “fake news” involves a redefinition of language. It doesn’t mean what it would seem to mean. It doesn’t mean news that is untrue. Rather, it has come to mean news that doesn’t fit in with the agenda of the left.

So the death of the American ambassador to Libya being attributed to a video about islam doesn’t qualify as fake news.

That Savita Halappanavar was reported, over and over again, to have died because of not having access to abortion also doesn’t qualify as fake news, even though all the investigations into her death concluded that an abortion would not have saved her life.

Nor does the broadcasting of an unverified tweet that went on to undermine the election hopes of candidate Sean Gallagher – as was done in the last days before the Irish presidential election by RTE in order to have their man appointed to Áras an Úachtaráin.

In none of the above examples would the truth have served the left’s agenda – it rarely does, after all – and so the falsehoods spread are not “fake news.”

Ironically, some of the perpetrators of the above-mentioned falsehoods are now freaking out about the amount of fake news in circulation.

Meanwhile, those who claimed that President-elect Trump could win the American election are apparently guilty of spreading fake news – even though he did actually win.

Fake news is getting so much coverage and attracting so much attention that governments and social media providers are being urged to do something about it.

The one month old phenomenon already has leading experts. One of them, Philip Howard, Oxford professor of sociology, information and international affairs, recently published a piece in the Irish Examiner (http://www.irishexaminer.com/viewpoints/analysis/how-social-media-stood-by-and-did-nothing-about-fake-news-during-brexit-and-us-president-votes-434754.html?google_editors_picks=true), in which he decried the fact that “our systems for measuring public opinion have been breaking down.”

In other words, the mainstream media doesn’t know what is going on, and that’s a problem.

Professor Howard presents a three-pronged approach to help “modern democracies to work,” including “nationwide exit polls, which identify mistakes in how elections are run” and “a regular supply of public policy polls.”

“Mistakes in how elections are run!” What does that remind us of? After the Brexit referendum we did hear people talking with great seriousness – gravitas even – about how the British government had made such mistakes leading to the “wrong” result in the referendum. Is that what he means?

And finally, according to Professor Howard, “democracies need ‘deliberative polls’ that put complex policy questions to representative groups of voters, who are given time to evaluate the possible solutions. These polls engage citizens through extended conversations with experts and each other. They lead to informed decision-making.”

It all sounds far too complicated to facilitate any decision making. Were people unable to make decisions before this whole system was invented? The human race has been around for thousands of years. How did we ever survive without “deliberative polls” putting complex questions to representative groups?

Between the recommendations of Professor Howard and the attitude expressed by Hillary Clinton, President Obama and a whole slew of mainstream media, we can be fairly sure that legislation and regulations will soon be introduced to put further curbs on anyone who opposes the left – or fake news, if you prefer.

The post Fake News first appeared on The Irish Machabean.

Fidel Castro is dead and public figures and demagogues the world over are wallowing in grief at his passing.

Pope Francis used the words “His Excellency” and “deceased dignitary” to refer to the dead despot, and expressed “sentiments of sorrow.”

And we glean from some of the most scandalous public statements on the matter that our own president “learned with great sadness of the death,” while it was “with great sorrow” that Canada’s prime minister “learned of the death.”

Both statements lavish similar praise on the late tyrant, affectionately refer to him as “el Comandante,” and the language in both is so alike that one might wonder if they share a press agent between them.

A long list of prominent people expressed equal sorrow, using the same sycophantic language, about the loss of their great model of statesmanship. It doesn’t bode well for the future of humanity that a man who so readily made use of firing squads and mass incarceration to achieve his political aims is so admired by the “leaders” of much of the Western world.

But who was this man who could elicit such an outpouring of grief and sympathy on his death?

“A Giant among Global Leaders”

President Michael D. Higgins described him as “a giant among global leaders,” a phrase unlikely to be applied to Mr Higgins himself and not only, we hasten to add, because of his physical stature. Rather Mr Higgins will go down in history as a midget among global leaders because of his willingness to be a stooge of the communist ideology and its enforcers, in spite of their disastrous consequences for humanity.

But in what sense could Castro be considered a “giant among global leaders?”

As a despot and mass-murderer he was up there with the greatest of them. Of course he didn’t manage to slay as many people as Mao Tse-tung, Joseph Stalin or Adolf Hitler. But then, he had only a small country to tyrannise.

Estimates vary, but credible figures (https://www.quora.com/How-many-deaths-was-Fidel-Castro-responsible-for) suggest that 30,000 to 40,000 were executed or died in prison (other sources suggest as many as 200,000 http://www.therealcuba.com/?page_id=103), while similar numbers perished while fleeing the island prison across the shark infested Florida Straits in makeshift rafts.

All civil liberties were repressed in Castro’s Cuba. The smallest details of life were controlled by pervasive agents of the state. Torture and imprisonment without trial were commonplace – rivalling Stalin’s USSR for the proportion of the population that was incarcerated.

Financially, too, Castro was a “giant among global leaders.”

According to Forbes, he had amassed a fortune of at least $900 million (http://www.forbes.com/2006/05/04/rich-kings-dictators_cz_lk_0504royals.html), although other sources put his wealth at the more modest figure of $168 million (http://www.news.com.au/world/fidel-castro-liveda-lie-to-his-own-people-as-claims-about-his-wealth-start-to-surface/news-story/6e40f9baa962854f3d704500723575cb). Either way, it is a huge amount to be siphoned off the small GDP of Cuba.

So it seems that his claim to live on the same standard wages as all Cubans – $30 per month – was not true. Nor was his claim that he lived in a fisherman’s hut. The reality is that he treated Cuba as his personal fief. He lived in a colonial palace, and kept many other homes throughout the Caribbean – and all this while his fellow Cubans lived in abject poverty.

Perhaps Mr Higgins considers Castro to be a giant because “he built up a health system that is one of the most admired in the world.” It is certainly admired by left wing demagogues and media outlets, in part because all they will get to see if they visit Cuba are the state-of-the-art health facilities for foreigners who can afford to pay (http://www.therealcuba.com/?page_id=77).

Meanwhile ordinary Cubans have to endure more humble facilities, propped up on charitable donations of drugs and equipment from other countries including Ireland (for example: http://www.anphoblacht.com/contents/21639).

As a tyrant Castro was a giant. As a tycoon he was a giant. For building the greatest health system in the world, he turns out not to be such a giant. And, of course, for being “one of the longest serving heads of state in the world” (mentioned by President Higgins) he was a giant.

Which of these characteristics does Mr Higgins so admire? Which would he emulate?

Would Mr Higgins impose the Cuban legacy of his dead hero on Ireland if he could? We should be grateful to God that he doesn’t have the power to do so.

Commenting in the Irish Independent, Ruth Dudley Edwards suggested that if, “as President, he can’t keep his contentious opinions to himself, he should resign” (http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/ruth-dudley-edwards/president-higgins-puts-his-left-foot-in-it-with-gushing-praise-for-fidel-castro-35247897.html). And so he should.

But President Higgins didn’t stop at what Senator Ronan Mullen quite rightly called “fawning, offensive and wholly inappropriate” comments. He went on to sign the book of condolences in the Cuban Embassy “on behalf of the people of Ireland.”

How dare he associate us with his own obsequious attitude towards one of the most ruthless tyrants of the 20^th Century?

Meanwhile Pope Francis offered his “sentiments of sorrow” to the Cuban people. It was while Castro was still alive that the Cubans were in most need of sympathy, if not some actual help to extricate themselves from under the heel of their dictator.

But what has shocked many who saw the statement of Pope Francis is that he promises, in very un-Catholic terminology, prayers for “his (Castro’s) rest” (http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2016/11/26/telegram_for_the_death_of_fidel_castro/1275046). Prayers for Castro’s victims, living and deceased, would be more appropriate.

Perhaps we shouldn’t be so hard on all these leftist leaders. Their world is crumbling. They can no longer persuade the masses. Just in the past six months the British have voted for Brexit; the Colombian people rejected a peace deal with the communist, drug-pushing terrorist group, FARC; and Hillary Clinton lost the American presidential election.

And now this grief!

The post Death of a Dictator first appeared on The Irish Machabean.

The media, both in USA and in Europe, seems to be in shock in the wake of the election of Donald Trump to the highest office in the United States of America. However, the result isn’t as inexplicable as many commentators make it out to be.

Below we post an article originally published thirty-six years ago today, written by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira in the Folha de S. Paulo on 17th November 1980. In it the author explains the election of Ronald Reagan, which apparently rocked the world, perhaps not to the same degree as that of Donald Trump. Nevertheless the explanation seems to be applicable to the recent election too:

Conscientise, Conscientise…

“An extremely rare ‘Social Revolution’ is being carried out in the United States,” affirmed El Mercurio (25/8/80), the newspaper with the largest circulation in the Chilean capital, on publishing a news dispatch coming from Los Angeles, California. The dispatch gives a profound explanation to the phenomenon which so roundly contradicted the predictions of innumerable organs of the media in the whole West, that is, the defeat of Carter and the victory of Reagan.

This error of prevision was of such magnitude that a journalist of the Folha de S. Paulo could wittily comment, in the section “Cotidiano” (7/11/80) that it destroys the credibility of “all the ‘analysts,’ ‘interpreters,’ ‘observers,’ ‘specialists,’ ‘experts,’ and other rumour mongers” who wrote about the matter, as well as that of “the most respected public opinion research firms.”

It seems to me that this sadly monumental error was due to the fact that no one took into account the phenomenon, nevertheless easy to perceive, that the correspondent of El Mercurio sums up as follows: Nowadays, “the rich are becoming ‘progressivists’ and the poor are becoming ‘conservatives.’” The newspaper explains: the rich in the United States are suffering from a “poverty complex” that leads them, for example, to put aside showy and plush automobiles they used to have, and to prefer the “tiny Japanese or German cars with their noisy diesel engines.” In contrast, the poor, led by a complex of riches, are using the finest looking automobiles that they can buy.

As I see it, the “reverse revolution” described here does not exist only in the United States. One notes symptoms of it in various countries. Take Brazil, for example: Who does not remember the surprisingly leftist vote of an impressive part of the electorate in rich neighbourhoods of Sao Paulo in the last election?

Therefore, it is not difficult to explain why Reagan, the conservative candidate, received more votes than Carter, the progressivist candidate. That would not have been possible without an advance of conservatism among the poor and more modest segments of the population which, by definition, are very numerous. Obviously, the position taken by these classes was not what it was in 1976 when Carter was elected.

Could it be that the professional oracles comically listed in the Folha de São Paulo did not see this change? Or could it be that they saw it but were prevented from bringing it to the attention of the public by a certain internal censorship of the liberal media?

The fact is that the West was up until then being deluded by the conviction that the poor formed an immense sea of people shaking with indignation and making rising waves of a growing aggressiveness. Supposedly, these waves had in many places already been dashing against the sullen wall of the ever more greedy and obstinate plutocrats; and at a given moment the waves would inevitably overthrow the wall; because the wall does not advance: it only resists; and winning is not merely resisting, but also, and above all, advancing. Such was the old Marxist myth of class warfare with which the international media intoxicated the West day and night.

This false version of reality would naturally lead the poor to be ever more demanding, as they enjoyed a foretaste of their victory. And it should lead the rich, finally brought into panic, to become ever more inclined to capitulate.

As far as the United States is concerned, this myth has been finally unmasked by the last elections. The poor reined in their indignation by an indisputably authentic turnabout. And this, let it be said in passing, testifies to their uprightness of soul and good sense.

What about the rich? I do not at present have information which would enable me to speak about the rich in the United States. Before my eyes, I have our Brazil, with its own rich. Through them one can make out, by analogy, something about their fabulously rich American counterparts.

Favourable as I am to a harmoniously stratified organization of society, I must nevertheless affirm that in our great urban centres, the social class with the largest percentage of leftists is that of the rich. Presumably, if all the voters had the mentality of the majority of those rich people, Brazil would already be a country in an advanced stage of socialism. What saves the more opulent segments of society from catastrophe is, as I see it, that the poor and the middle class are much more conservative than they are.

How can one explain this leftist mentality of the rich, and especially of our very rich? Look how they fight day and night to multiply their profits and pile up their fortunes. Therefore, detached they are not. How can one explain, then, their being favourable to socialism scattering what they so laboriously accumulate? Is it fear? Is it panic in the face of the waves of people whom they imagine to be infuriated? Is it a willingness to “give in a little in order not to lose all,” according to the old agrarian reform slogan of 1960? Quite probably so. But as I see it, not everything can be explained just by this…

At any rate, Carter’s gauche and jaded harangues about human rights had no greater enthusiasts in Brazil than the leftist rich; nor did his defeat cause as much sadness in any part of the population as it did among them.

The world is changing, but they are not. If only Carter’s defeat could make them see how anachronistic they are in the way they see things.

In fact, they did not need Carter’s defeat to see that. All they had to do was pay attention to the most insistently used slogan of the “Catholic left:” “Conscientise, conscientise…” “Conscientise” whom, I ask? The working class. Of what? That there are reasons for it to be indignant at its employers. I conclude: Then, its indignation is less than the “Catholic left” would like it to be; and the “Catholic left” is stirring it up as much as it can.

As a consequence, the conservativism of the common people does not seem to be merely an American reality, but also a Brazilian, South American, and perhaps, a world reality.

All of this does not amount to saying that those who are not poor can tranquilly let themselves oppress the poor who are so resigned. The truth is precisely the contrary. The poor are giving the leftist rich a very great lesson in common sense. If those who are not poor fail to respond to this lesson with a conduct imbued with respect and a spirit of justice and Christian charity, the course of History, guided by the hand of God, will overthrow these incorrigible socialist tycoons. Will it be to make a classless society? No, but a hierarchical society that may begin genuinely to deserve the noble adjective, Christian.

The post American Presidential Election first appeared on The Irish Machabean.