Many people, including some Catholics, roll their eyes when we explain the administration’s attack on religious liberty. The most serious of these is the unconscionable HHS mandate requiring us to fund contraceptives (including abortifacients) and sterilizations. By no means is this the only disheartening development.

Religious persecution (particularly of Christians) is not new, of course. Our country has been increasingly secular and government has been enshrining secularism as our state religion for a some time. Under President Obama, the pace has picked-up dramatically.

The president’s track record against Christianity is deeper and broader than many people apparently realize. Father John Zuhlsdorf received this lengthy list (50 items in 4 categories) from a reader and published it on his blog yesterday:

Acts of Hostility Toward People Of Biblical Faith

1. April 2008 – Obama speaks disrespectfully of Christians, saying they “cling to guns or religion” and have an “antipathy to people who aren’t like them.”
2. February 2009 – Obama announces plans to revoke conscience protection for health workers who refuse to participate in medical activities that go against their beliefs, and fully implements the plan in February 2011.
3. April 2009 – When speaking at Georgetown University, Obama orders that a monogram symbolizing Jesus’ name be covered when he is making his speech.
4. May 2009 – Obama declines to host services for the National Prayer Day (a day established by federal law) at the White House.
5. April 2009 – In a deliberate act of disrespect, Obama nominated three pro-abortion ambassadors to the Vatican ; of course, the pro-life Vatican rejected all three.
6. October 19, 2010 – Obama begins deliberately omitting the phrase about “the Creator” when quoting the Declaration of Independence – an omission he has made on no less than seven occasions.
7. November 2010 – Obama misquotes the National Motto, saying it is “E pluribus Unum” rather than “In God We Trust” as established by federal law.
8. January 2011 – After a federal law was passed to transfer a WWI Memorial in the Mojave Desert to private ownership, the U. S. Supreme Court ruled that the cross in the memorial could continue to stand, but the Obama administration refused to allow the land to be transferred as required by law, and refused to allow the cross to be re-erected as ordered by the Court.
9. February 2011 – Although he filled posts in the State Department, for more than two years Obama did not fill the post of religious freedom ambassador, an official that works against religious persecution across the world; he filled it only after heavy pressure from the public and from Congress.
10. April 2011 – For the first time in American history, Obama urges passage of a non-discrimination law that does not contain hiring protections for religious groups, forcing religious organizations to hire according to federal mandates without regard to the dictates of their own faith, thus eliminating conscience protection in hiring.
11. August 2011 – The Obama administration releases its new health care rules that override religious conscience protections for medical workers in the areas of abortion and contraception.
12. November 2011 – Obama opposes inclusion of President Franklin Roosevelt’s famous D-Day Prayer in the WWII Memorial.
13. November 2011 – Unlike previous presidents, Obama studiously avoids any religious references in his Thanksgiving speech.
14. December 2011 – The Obama administration denigrates other countries’ religious beliefs as an obstacle to radical homosexual rights.
15. January 2012 – The Obama administration argues that the First Amendment provides no protection for churches and synagogues in hiring their pastors and rabbis.
16. February 2012 – The Obama administration forgives student loans in exchange for public service, but announces it will no longer forgive student loans if the public service is related to religion.

Acts of Hostility From The Obama-Led Military Toward People of Biblical Faith:

1. June 2011 – The Department of Veterans Affairs forbids references to God and Jesus during burial ceremonies at Houston National Cemetery.
2. August 2011 – The Air Force stops teaching the Just War theory to officers in California because the course is taught by chaplains and is based on a philosophy introduced by St. Augustine in the third century AD – a theory long taught by civilized nations across the world (except America).
3. September 2011 – Air Force Chief of Staff prohibits commanders from notifying airmen of programs and services available to them from chaplains.
4. September 2011 – The Army issues guidelines for Walter Reed Medical Center stipulating that “No religious items (i.e. Bibles, reading materials and/or facts) are allowed to be given away or used during a visit.”
5. November 2011 – The Air Force Academy rescinds support for Operation Christmas Child, a program to send holiday gifts to impoverished children across the world, because the program is run by a Christian charity.
6. November 2011 – The Air Force Academy pays $80,000 to add a Stonehenge-like worship center for pagans, druids, witches and Wiccans.
7. February 2012 – The U. S. Military Academy at West Point dis-invites three star Army general and decorated war hero Lieutenant General William G. (“Jerry”) Boykin (retired) from speaking at an event because he is an outspoken Christian.
8. February 2012 – The Air Force removes “God” from the patch of Rapid Capabilities Office (the word on the patch was in Latin: Dei).
9. February 2012 – The Army orders Catholic chaplains not to read a letter to parishioners that their archbishop asked them to read.

Acts of Hostility Toward Biblical Values

1. January 2009 – Obama lifts restrictions on U.S. government funding for groups that provide abortion services or counseling abroad, forcing taxpayers to fund pro-abortion groups that either promote or perform abortions in other nations.
2. January 2009 – President Obama’s nominee for deputy secretary of state asserts that American taxpayers are required to pay for abortions and that limits on abortion funding are unconstitutional.
3. March 2009 – The Obama administration shut out pro-life groups from attending a White House-sponsored health care summit.
4. March 2009 – Obama orders taxpayer funding of embryonic stem cell research.
5. March 2009 – Obama gave $50 million for the UNFPA, the UN population agency that promotes abortion and works closely with Chinese population control officials who use forced abortions and involuntary sterilizations.
6. May 2009 – The White House budget eliminates all funding for abstinence-only education and replaces it with “comprehensive” sexual education, repeatedly proven to increase teen pregnancies and abortions. He continues the deletion in subsequent budgets.
7. May 2009 – Obama officials assemble a terrorism dictionary calling pro-life advocates violent and charging that they use racism in their “criminal” activities.
8. July 2009 – The Obama administration illegally extends federal benefits to same-sex partners of Foreign Service and Executive Branch employees, in direct violation of the federal Defense of Marriage Act.
9. September 16, 2009 – The Obama administration appoints as EEOC Commissioner Chai Feldblum, who asserts that society should “not tolerate” any “private beliefs,” including religious beliefs, if they may negatively affect homosexual “equality.”
10. July 2010 – The Obama administration uses federal funds in violation of federal law to get Kenya to change its constitution to include abortion.
11. August 2010 – The Obama administration Cuts funding for 176 abstinence education programs.
12. September 2010 – The Obama administration tells researchers to ignore a judge’s decision striking down federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.
13. February 2011 – Obama directs the Justice Department to stop defending the federal Defense of Marriage Act.
14. March 2011 – The Obama administration refuses to investigate videos showing Planned Parenthood helping alleged sex traffickers get abortions for victimized underage girls.
15. July 2011 – Obama allows homosexuals to serve openly in the military, reversing a policy originally instituted by George Washington in March 1778.
16. September 2011 – The Pentagon directs that military chaplains may perform same-sex marriages at military facilities in violation of the federal Defense of Marriage Act.
17. October 2011 – The Obama administration eliminates federal grants to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for their extensive programs that aid victims of human trafficking because the Catholic Church is anti-abortion.

Acts Of Preferentialism For Islam

1. May 2009 – While Obama does not host any National Day of Prayer event at the White House, he does host White House Iftar dinners in honor of Ramadan.
2. April 2010 – Christian leader Franklin Graham is dis-invited from the Pentagon’s National Day of Prayer Event because of complaints from the Muslim community.
3. April 2010 – The Obama administration requires rewriting of government documents and a change in administration vocabulary to remove terms that are deemed offensive to Muslims, including jihad, jihadists, terrorists, radical Islamic, etc.
4. August 2010 – Obama speaks with great praise of Islam and condescendingly of Christianity.
5. August 2010 – Obama went to great lengths to speak out on multiple occasions on behalf of building an Islamic mosque at Ground Zero, while at the same time he was silent about a Christian church being denied permission to rebuild at that location.
6. 2010 – While every White House traditionally issues hundreds of official proclamations and statements on numerous occasions, this White House avoids traditional Biblical holidays and events but regularly recognizes major Muslim holidays, as evidenced by its 2010 statements on Ramadan, Eid-ul-Fitr, Hajj, and Eid-ul-Adha.
7. October 2011 – Obama’s Muslim advisers block Middle Eastern Christians’ access to the White House.
8. February 2012 – The Obama administration makes effulgent apologies for Korans being burned by the U. S. military, but when Bibles were burned by the military, numerous reasons were offered why it was the right thing to do.

Alas, the most recent entries on the list were from last February. It would be much longer if it were up-to-date (e.g. the debacle on removing all references to God from the Democratic Party platform).

The list is from Fr. Z’s blog: Pres. Obama’s record in regard to Christians and Biblical values. As always, interesting comments will be there as well.

Remaining on the topic of wealth this week (see the wealthy Church from Tuesday), today’s topic is the wealthy Christian – or more precisely what some Christians teach to become prosperous.

Jesus taught us in the Sermon on the Mount “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:3) Poor in spirit is detachment from material things. Prosperity gospel (a/k/a prosperity theology or the “health and wealth” gospel) teaches something quite different. Not only are you promised material wealth and other non-spiritual happiness in this life, but it is an end in itself. This would be the opposite of detachment. It is also false – just another of the thousands of different Protestant interpretations of Holy Scripture.

When you have no Magisterium and lack authority protected by the Holy Spirit, almost anything is possible. In this case, the claim is that prosperity (material, physical and spiritual) is God’s promise to you and the earthly fruit of your true faith. Millions of people believe this stuff.

It seems reasonable to me to conclude that if you happen to be poor then it is a result of your weak faith. Conversely, extremely wealthy people must be the truly holy among us (sorry Catholic clergy and religious, you don’t make the grade!). Frankly, this is absurd. Holiness and wealth are independent of each other.

Father Robert Barron addressed this topic at The Integrated Catholic Life:

To give the prosperity gospellers their due, there is some biblical warrant for their position. The book of Deuteronomy consistently promises Israel that, if it remains faithful to God’s commands, it will receive numerous benefits in this world. The psalmist too assures us, “delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” And Jesus himself counsels: “seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things (food, shelter, clothing, etc.) will be added unto you.” And there is no doubt that the Bible consistently urges people to trust in the providence of God at all times. Jesus’ reminder that the birds, who neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns but who are nevertheless fed by their heavenly Father, is a summation of the Scriptural confidence in God’s care for those who have faith in him.

However, we must be attentive to the very subtle way that the Bible itself nuances and specifies these claims. The great counterpoise to the book of Deuteronomy is the book of Job, which tells the story of a thoroughly righteous man who, in one fell swoop, suffers the loss of all of his material prosperity. Job’s friends, operating out of a standard Deuteronomistic (or prosperity Gospel) point of view, argue that he must have grievously offended God, but Job – and God himself – protest against this simplistic interpretation. The deepest reason for Job’s suffering, we learn, is lost in the infinite abyss of God’s permissive will and is by no means easily correlatable to Job’s virtue or lack thereof. And Jesus himself, the very archetype of the faithful Israelite, experiences not earthly prosperity, but a life of simplicity and death on a brutal instrument of torture. If Joel Osteen and Oral Roberts were right, we would expect Jesus to have been the richest man in Nazareth and a darling of Jerusalem high society.

The resolution of this issue turns on a distinction between a conventional understanding and a divine understanding of the successful life. Deuteronomy is indeed right when it says that “prosperity” will follow from obedience to God’s will, but the prosperity in question is spiritual flourishing, and not necessarily worldly success. Obeying the divine commands does indeed lead to the right ordering of the self, and therefore to an increase in joy, even if that very obedience leads, in worldly terms, to abject suffering or failure. St. Thomas More followed the voice of his conscience and this led to the loss of his home, his family, his considerable fortune, his high political status, and eventually his life. But he died, spiritually speaking, a successful man, a saint. St. Thomas Aquinas endeavored to answer a question that many of us ask: why do the wicked often prosper and the righteous suffer? Thomas turned the question on its head by introducing the wider context of God’s purposes. Perhaps, he suggested, the good person who is deprived of material goods is actually being rewarded, since that deprivation opens him more and more to the spiritual dimension; and perhaps the wicked person who has every worldly benefit is actually being punished, since those material preoccupations close him to the only good that finally matters.

Read the Father Barrons’s whole piece: The Dangers of the Prosperity Gospel. Alternatively, Father presents generally the same content in this video:

Two other good articles on this topic are The Problem for the Prosperity Gospel at Beliefnet and The Worst Ideas of the Decade published in The Washington Post.

One persistent attack against the Church is that she hordes extensive wealth for herself instead of distributing it to the poor. This is claimed to be proof of her corruption and hypocrisy. The facts are quite different than this narrative would suggest.

The Catholic Church does indeed receive a lot of money from its billion plus members. It does not keep it however. The Church is the biggest charitable organization in the world, running shelters, orphanages, schools, hospitals and many other individual charities.

No one is getting rich, even those who have not taken a vow of poverty. Our clergy and other religious are highly educated, work long hours, earn a fairly “soft” concept of when “retirement” begins (if ever) – yet are paid little materially. They do not live in lavish residences. They do not drive luxury cars (sometimes a parishioner, such as a car dealer, will loan their bishop one). Compare that to non-Catholic Christians, other religions and any secular charity.

It is true that we have beautiful churches and artwork. These are gifts to the Church for the Glory of God. They inspire and elevate the human spirit. They are not monetary investment assets but priceless spiritual ones. Secularists might think of them as part of our “operation” just as offices of the United Way are part of theirs.

Marc Barnes wrote about this topic over at Bad Catholic:

But most importantly — and this really is my point here — the wealth of the Church exists for the edification and benefit of every Catholic. Cathedrals are not solely for bishops. A throne exists for more than the man sitting on it. It is a certain nasty pride that tells the man suffering from poverty that the Beauty surrounding him — be he a homeless man appreciating the cool of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York, or a Haitian saying prayers in the Cathédrale St. Jacques et St. Philippe — that it should all be torn down, sold, and given to him in the form of money. It is an offense to say, “this golden tabernacle you kneel before — it should be melted for bread.” The poor man in this position would do well to tell his just-escaped-the-Internet friend the truth that “man does not live on bread alone.”

Faulting the Cathedrals and Basilicas of the world for containing “too much” wealth is an awkward denial of the fact that the Cathedrals and Basilicas of the world are explicitly for the use of the poor, and to steal from them is to steal — not merely from the Church — but from the poor themselves, who — despite the perceptions of Hollywood — do not merely need bread, cash and contraception, but beauty, ritual, and God as well.

Make sense? The visible wealth — the very stuff that sets people complaining — is for the poor.

But surely the cardinals and Popes are rolling in it. Right? I can’t speak for the entire world, but the average salary of an American bishop is 23,000 dollars a year, about half the average American’s. The average priest’s is 40,000 dollars a year, only 20,000 of which is actually “take home cash”. And if you’re the Pope, not only does your salary suck, but you don’t get it until you’re dead. Pope’s get one gold, silver and copper coin for each year of service placed on their coffin. Blessed John Paul II received about $141 dollars.

Read the whole piece: In Defense of Nice Churches. There are many excellent comments as well.

What does it mean for someone to say that they are Catholic? Technically, anyone who was baptized or confirmed in the Church is Catholic and always will be. Technically.

There are, of course, those who have “left the Church,” at least in their own minds. They implicitly or explicitly deny the authority of the Church, given by Christ, to preserve and spread truth to the world. These lapsed-Catholics take contrary personal positions on this or that and find a community more agreeable with their will, if not Christ’s.

There is another group of dissident Catholics who have not left. They too disagree with Church teaching, insist it is wrong and that it must change or become “flexible.” Like the first group, these folks soundly deny the authority of our Lord’s Church from which He is inseparable. Through their positions, they are saying that Jesus is wrong. Most liberal Catholic politicians fit this definition (Peolsi, Sebelius, Biden, et al). While claiming to be “guided” by their faith, they none-the-less warmly embrace that which is anathema such as abortion, contraception, “gay marriage,” restrictions on religious freedom and so on. “[T]his people draws near with words only and honors me with their lips alone, though their hearts are far from me…” (Isaiah 29:13)

Pope Benedict XVI himself spoke on this topic in a recent Angelus address (the highlighting is mine):

Dear brothers and sisters!

In the past few Sundays we have meditated on the “Bread of Life” discourse that Jesus pronounced in the synagogue of Capernaum after feeding thousands of people with five loaves and two fishes. Today, the Gospel presents the disciples” reaction to that speech, a reaction that Christ Himself knowingly provoked. First of all, John the Evangelist – who was present along with the other Apostles – reports that “from that time many of His disciples drew back and no longer went about with Him” (John 6:66). Why? Because they did not believe the words of Jesus when He said: “I am the living bread which came down from heaven. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood will live forever? (cf. John 6:51-54). This revelation, as I have said, remained incomprehensible to them, because they understood it in a material sense, while in these words was foretold the Paschal Mystery of Jesus, in which He would give Himself for the salvation of the world: the new presence in the Holy Eucharist.

Seeing that many of His disciples were leaving, Jesus addressed the Apostles, saying: “Will you also go away?” (John 6:67). As in other cases, it is Peter who replied on behalf of the Twelve: “Lord, to whom shall we go? – and we too can reflect: to whom shall we go? – You have the words of eternal life and we have believed and know that You are the Holy One of God” (John 6:68-69). On this passage we have a beautiful commentary of St. Augustine, who says in one of his homilies on John 6: “Do you see how Peter, by the grace of God, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, has understood? Why did he understand? Because he believed. You have the words of eternal life. You give us eternal life by offering your risen body and your blood, your very self. And we have believed and understood. He does not say we have understood and then we believed, but we believed and then we understood. We have believed in order to be able to understand; if, in fact, we wanted to understand before believing, we would not be able either to understand or to believe. What have we believed and what have we understood? That You are the Christ, the Son of God, that is, that You are that very eternal life, and that You give in Your flesh and blood only that which You are? (Commentary on the Gospel of John, 27, 9). So Saint Augustine said in a homily to his faithful people.

Finally, Jesus knew that even among the twelve apostles there was one that did not believe: Judas. Judas could have left, as many of the disciples did; indeed, he would have left if he were honest. Instead he remained with Jesus. He did not remain because of faith, or because of love, but with the secret intention of taking vengeance on the Master. Why? Because Judas felt betrayed by Jesus, and decided that he in turn would betray Him. Judas was a Zealot, and wanted a triumphant Messiah, who would lead a revolt against the Romans. Jesus had disappointed those expectations. The problem is that Judas did not go away, and his most serious fault was falsehood, which is the mark of the devil. This is why Jesus said to the Twelve: “One of you is a devil” (John 6:70). We pray to the Virgin Mary, help us to believe in Jesus, as St. Peter did, and to always be sincere with Him and with all people.

The pope’s address is on the Vatican website, in text and audio.

In related comments, Father John Hollowell noted that “a cafeteria Catholic has taken true premises through to false conclusions while also lacking the courage to ACT on those false conclusions. Is there anything more illogical than that ‘catholics’ who hate the Church?” His very good, recent homily expounds on this:

Monsignor Ignacio Barreiro in recent comments said “Catholics who cannot bring themselves to believe the formal teachings of the Church on life and family matters – it would be more honest to leave the Church rather than betraying Her. We regret very much that the person is so inclined and we wish they would have a conversion to truly believe.”

Father Zuhlsdorf commented on this here. John Quinn also covered this here and here.

Some people assert that Jesus never said that gays could not marry. This is wrong on so many levels. For starters, Jesus never explicitly said that men could not marry farm animals nor that women could not marry vegetables. Such wonky logic! The obviousness of these things in biblical times precluded any need for additional comment. In fact, these things were obvious to all for the entirety of human history until recently when some of us think that they have “evolved.”

The entire Old Testament was abundantly clear on homosexuality. For example, “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; such a thing is an abomination.” (Leviticus 18:22) or “If a man lies with a male as with a woman, they have committed an abomination; the two of them shall be put to death; their bloodguilt is upon them.” (Leviticus 20:13)   Was all this thrown out? NO – “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.” (Matthew 5:17)

Direct comments are not absent from the New Testament either. For example, “Do you not know that the unjust will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor boy prostitutes nor sodomites nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God. (1 Corinthians 6:9-10)

Writing for Catholic Lane, Christopher Eden suggests that Jesus actually did address the issue of gay “marriage”:

Jesus’ stance on marriage was strong. When the Pharisees asked Him whether it was lawful for a man to give his wife a bill of divorce He responded, “The Creator ‘made them male and female…   a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’…   So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, no human being must separate?” (Matthew 19:4-6).

The apostles were stunned when He went on to say that only death could dissolve a (valid) marriage, and how anyone who divorced and remarried lived in adultery. “If that is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry!” (Matthew 19:10) Jesus didn’t back-pedal; they had understood Him just fine. That was marriage in the Kingdom – marriage as it was before humanity’s Fall. Jesus knew it would be difficult, “Not all can accept this word, but only those to whom that is granted” (Matthew 19:11).

Pay attention to what Jesus said next: “Some are incapable of marriage because they were born so; some, because they were made so by others; some, because they have renounced marriage for the sake of the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 19:12). A man’s ability to be united to his wife, sexually, was what made him a candidate for marriage. If he was unable to achieve sexual union because of a) birth defect, b) castration, or c) a vow of celibacy; then marriage was not his vocation.

The foundation of Jesus’ whole argument is biological. Unless “a man” and “his wife…   become one flesh,” there is no valid marriage. For Jesus, and for anyone committed to His teachings, it is impossible to speak of a “Christian same-sex marriage.” Jesus’ words rule it out absolutely. The parameters for marriage between Christians, the parameters for a sacramental marriage, have been set by Jesus and cannot be changed. “Heaven and earth will pass away but my words will never pass away” (Luke 23:33).

Christians who argue differently undermine their faith. To make their argument they would have to assume that either a) Jesus was wrong on the nature of marriage (If so, He’s not God); or b) the Bible puts false words in Jesus’ mouth (If the Bible got Jesus’ words on marriage wrong, why believe it when it says that God loves us or Jesus died to save us from our sins?) There are some questions where Christians can honestly disagree with one another, but this is not one of them; Jesus teaching is plain, as is His warning to those who try to water His teachings down, “If anyone is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels? (Luke 9:26).

Read the whole piece: Was Jesus Really Silent on Same-Sex “Marriage”?.