SIR BROTHER PATRICK LYNCH ON 'RESPECT' (Letter to NZ Catholic, June 1)

“Prominent Catholic education leader” Sir Brother Patrick Lynch says “treat politicians with respect” (NZ Catholic, June 3). 

Sir Brother Patrick has been “sharply critical” of Catholics who’ve had nasty things to say to or about Prime Ministers - at Mass! - including referring to Jim Bolger as (gasp!) ‘Jim’.

 

Yes, Jesus Christ commands us to treat others with respect. He does not command that we treat their opinions – especially politicians’ opinions - with respect. Think what a tongue-lashing he gave the politicians of his day, the Pharisees!

 

So may I respectfully ask, why shouldn’t a priest lambast "Helen" (oops, isn’t that her first name?) Clark "for her views on abortion"? Pardon me if I say that as the media start foaming at the mouth over the likelihood of liberalising abortion, the Church needs to be vocally very critical of 'pro-choice' politicians’ views, especially at Mass.

 

Sir Brother Patrick is right to respect gay politicians, and in schools where the faith is taught so poorly that few parents would know – or teachers teach - that living a gay life is sinful, it’s hardly surprising that Chris Carter “was always well received”.

 

Or that Catholics don't know "the rules of the game". Only it's not a game, it's a battle for souls, to win them for Christ.

JUST WHO IS THE 'DESPERATE CRIMINAL'? (Letter to Dom Post, May 30)

The claim that “Polls conducted by  Family First found New Zealanders are broadly pro-choice” (How rare, Mr Bridges?, May 30), proves that The Dominion Post’s regard for facts has shrunk along with its size.

Recent polling of the same New Zealanders actually shows strong support for legal safeguards and greater time limits on the provision of abortion, even from those who generally support abortion.

Kiwis, who know much more now than they used to about the dangers of abortion, want greater provision of safeguards around issues like coercion, standards for abortion providers, and informed consent. 

Even your cartoonist Murdoch, in depicting a pregnant woman as “a desperate criminal”, has lost her grip on reality. No pregnant woman who has an abortion is a criminal.

It’s the certifying consultants who authorise abortions illegally, risking women’s lives and health along with the loss of their children, who are the criminals. But paid millions annually as they are by the government, no one could call them desperate.

Just as an aside, who remembers the last prosecution of one such fraudulent ‘health’ practitioner?

And who wants a newspaper that can't report the facts?

WOMEN DON'T HAVE TO LIE (Letter to Dom Post, May 29)

It’s Morning Report’s Jack Tame and Susie Ferguson and The Dominion Post, not New Zealand politicians, who “should be embarrassed” (Bridges 'loath' to change abortion law, May 29), as Terry Bellamak of Abortion Law Reform NZ puts it.

Fellow-travellers one and all, they should be ashamed for stating and reporting that women 'have to lie' to obtain an abortion. No they don’t. They choose to lie.

When journalists believe that women 'have to lie' – that circumstances sometimes require one to lie – it follows they believe that sometimes circumstances might require journalists to lie, also. It’s self-evident, from not one but three items in the May 29 issue pressing for change to the abortion law, that The Dominion Post supports the move.

And to state that views opposing it are “largely religious in nature” is a lie. A hoary old lie, but a lie nonetheless.

One needs no religious views whatsoever to see the health and societal reasons for opposing abortion – just as one needs no religious views to see that it’s always wrong to tell a lie - or to report it as fact.

IRISH WOMEN DELIRIOUS WITH JOY

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Watching Tv One News tonight, the frenzied women in Ireland delirious with joy because now they can murder their own children, it should be hard for the Catholic clergy not to recognize the demonic influences at work.

As a friend of mine has just remarked, that terrible outcome reveals the state of the Catholic Church in Ireland. Legalized abortion is a symptom of the absence of God in the hearts of individuals and the nation. I would add - and my friend would agree - that it's also a symptom of the presence of Satan.

The Yes vote is hardly surprising. How many NZ congregations were encouraged to pray in a spirit of solidarity, last week, for imperiled Ireland? None that I know of.

And I imagine Irish congregations hear the same kind of homilies we have in New Zealand: for example, that Holy Mass is about 'celebrating us', because we love 'each other' and we're 'wonderful'. 'God is not awe, He is not fear, He is love'. The Mystery of the Most Holy Trinity which, ironically, we celebrate today isn't a mystery at all: 'It's simple! God is love!'

Well yes, but we poor ninnies in the pews ask ourselves, what kind of love? Could you please explain?

My explanation is that God's love is not sentiment, it isn't about being nice, it's not about being comfy and getting your jollies. He may occasionally flood a person who prays with sweetness and joy, but more often He seems absent, cold and distant. He goes off your radar. But for those who love him, it's always for the best. All the time, always and everywhere, His love is at work in mysterious ways,

even for those who don't love him, to draw everyone close to Him on earth so they can enjoy Him for ever in heaven.

So the Mystery of the Most Holy Trinity, and the Mystery of the Mass, cannot in logic be about 'celebrating us'. It's about celebrating GOD.

1. Firstly, it's about adoring GOD who created us only so that He could give us good things on earth and the best in heaven. 
2. Secondly it's about giving GOD thanks for all of the above. 
3. Thirdly it's about making atonement to GOD for sin (you know, that product that you don't see on the shelves any more because people didn't like it, there was no market for it, no profit in it.) 
4. And lastly Mass is about petition, asking GOD for what we need. Of course we ask for what we want, but if we are in a state of grace (and don't get me started on that) He will give us what we truly need, i.e. help to get to heaven.  

It's the business of celebrating ourselves instead of God which has brought Ireland to this tragic state. It's the way we put the second commandment before the first. "I am the Lord your God. You shall not put strange gods before me." When we put ourselves before God we make strange gods of ourselves, of our 'rights', our 'choice', bodies, our careers, our ambitions.

In an interview with Cardinal Carlo Caffarra, co-author of the dubia on Pope Francis' apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia, the Fatima visionary Sr Lucia has stated that the devil's final war is against marriage and family life, to destroy them.

And what better way is there for Satan to do that, than to persuade or coerce a mother into murdering her own child?

'GOD MADE YOU THAT WAY' IS A LIE (Letter to Dom Post, May 25)

It’s scarcely credible that Pope Francis would say “God made you that way” (Pope resigned to getting things wrong, May 25). The Catholic Church exists to preach the truth, and that statement is a lie. Not just any old lie, but the one which arguably has proved the most harmful to its mission.

 

Last week the Pope’s withering critique of Chilean bishops’ handling of sex abuse resulted in their wholesale resignation. He quoted their “loss of prophetic strength”, meaning loss of courage in proclaiming the Gospel, which is the first task of any priest, especially the Pope.

 

The Gospel states that “God made them male and female” (Mt 10,6). He didn’t make them homosexual. There’s no ‘gay gene’. It’s painful to contemplate the societal influences – chiefly the absence of fathers in early childhood – that deceive people into believing homosexual inclinations are innate, and preaching that it’s a deception will not make priests popular. However, priests and popes are not meant to be popular, but truthful.

 

Pope Francis blamed the Chilean crisis partly on men in seminaries who have a history of active homosexuality. If God made them that way, why shouldn’t they be in seminaries?

 

 

PRAY FOR IRELAND!

Tomorrow (NZ time) the people of Ireland will vote as to whether to repeal the 8th Amendment to their Constitution. That amendment protects the lives of the unborn from abortion. We pray that people vote “No” to this proposal, and keep the scourge of abortion out of their country. 

Let's hear it for gallant little Ireland, the nation that has withstood bullying from the UN who say it subjects women to 'cruel, inhumane and degrading' treatment for not allowing abortions.
Let's note that Ireland's maternal death rate is one of the best in Europe and way better than the UK.

Let's note that Ireland's GDP per capita is better than the US and far outstrips the UK. For those with eyes to see, that would seem to be God's blessing consequent on Irish care for His littlest ones.

And that the 'father of fetology', Professor Sir William Liley, a Kiwi, stated way back in the '70s that the life of her unborn child is never a threat to the life of the mother.

LET'S PRAY FOR IRELAND:

Oh God of Life, You have conquered death Through the death and Resurrection Of your Son, Jesus Christ, And you have made us the People of Life. You have blessed the great land of Ireland With the beauty of the Catholic Faith And with the commitment to defend The lives of the most defenseless children. Lord, we ask you today To protect that commitment. Keep the people of Ireland safe From the destructive power of abortion. Preserve them from the lie That abortion is ever a benefit to anyone. Protect the 8th Amendment From those who want to remove it. Send the Holy Spirit And bring Ireland a New Pentecost, That just as the Holy Spirit is our Advocate So we may always be advocates For the weakest among us, The children yet unborn. We pray through Christ our Lord. Amen.

EUTHANASIA ENTHUSIASTS ARE SPOILT CHILDREN (Letter published in Dom Post, May 26)

This letter has been published. Maybe because it's not about abortion?

More wanted from assisted-death bill (May 22). There we have it: the proponents of euthanasia or assisted death as they like to call it, like those who demand the liberalisation of abortion laws, will always want more.  

They are like spoilt children who are never satisfied with the toys and food they’re given but always demand more from their harassed but over-indulgent parents. The health care, the benefits, the hospice care provided for these people is never enough.

They want their own way – ‘end of life directives’. They spit out the ‘medicine’ prescribed by doctors – the advice given by Dr Catherine Hallagan, Chair of the Health Professionals Alliance, that “David Seymour’s bill is a bad bill that cannot be fixed”. 

Instead, they want the lollies of self-indulgence and always and forever to watch the programme of their choice.

They should grow up.

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE CATHOLIC BISHOP OF PALMERSTON NORTH:

AN OPEN LETTER TO BISHOP CHARLES DRENNAN:

“Kiwi Christians urged to stand up against abortion” runs the headline in the latest NZ Catholic (May 20), with a story about the 2018 Social Justice Tour facilitated by Voice for Life. 

Well, at the Social Justice Tour in Napier on May 6, billed as the Bryan Kemper Event, the biggest pro-life do in the Bay for years, 100 Kiwi Christians stood up, but not one priest. One Protestant pastor, of Indian ethnicity, but not one priest.

Yes, it was a Sunday night, but for many lay people – like the parents of twelve who drove two hours to get there – Sunday’s a busy day too.

A request beforehand, to distribute Family First pamphlets against decriminalising abortion in a major HB parish ,was turned down. “It has to come from the Bishop” - who obviously would rather not see women who’ve had abortions leaving the Church. 

But Jesus Christ proclaimed the doctrine of the Eucharist knowing people would leave him. He was so unpopular he was crucified.

A priest’s first duty is to teach the Gospel: “take care that you do not despise one of these little ones” (Mt 18,10). The priesthood of the Church of Palmerston North is effectively despising the unborn, with the result that the pro-life movement in this neck of the woods, once Catholic, is now dominated by Protestants.

Priests who worry about hurting people’s feelings should worry more about hurting the feelings of God. To any who think God doesn’t have feelings, I say, “And “Jesus wept” (Jn 11, 35).

The Catholic Church must reject popularity and teach the truth.

CHRISTIAN MEDITATION? WHY NOT?

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There was a time – about three years ago – when I was a fervent advocate for Christian Meditation. For about three months. Then I began to smell a rat. And I wrote this column for NZ Catholic:

             At the risk of being seen as  a quisling, a fifth columnist, a turncoat, I have to say, as a lay Carmelite who belongs to a Christian Meditation group, that I have grave doubts about this method of prayer.

I turned up to support parishioners who were seeking a deeper way of prayer and friendship with the Divine, and I got hooked. CM was so simple, so accessible. But having earnestly recommended it to friends and family as the best thing since sliced bread, I’m now doing a volte face. 

I believe now that my initial enthusiasm was ignited by taking up John Main’s prescription of two periods of ‘meditation’, for 20-30 minutes, morning and evening. To quote Woody Allen, ‘showing up is half the work’, and anyone who shows up for any Christian prayer will be blessed – and I was. 

            But after persevering with the mantra as taught by Main and his successor Laurence Freeman for several months, I felt that prayer-wise, I’d regressed. And I believe now that the term ‘meditation’, hijacked by Main to provide a Christian alternative to the phenomenon of transcendental meditation or Tm which, led by the Beatles and like Buddhist contemplation (Zen satori), seized the popular imagination in the ‘70s, is a misnomer. 

          What first aroused my suspicions was the fact that CM's founder John Main claimed to have retrieved the practice of meditation - forgotten, he said, since the 4^th century - and replicated it in CM single-handedly in the 20th. But it's been the main charism of the Carmelite Order since the 13th century, and a treasure of Catholic tradition all along.

And then there's CM’s insistence on prayer as the way to infused contemplation, to the exclusion of the two other legs of the Christian ‘stool’ - fasting and almsgiving. Cardinal Josef Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) tells us that “the emptiness which God requires is the renunciation of personal selfishness”. That advice, and the wisdom of St Teresa of Avila, Doctor of the Church, who says “good works are a better and quicker preparation for the enkindling of our love than many hours of meditation” is completely ignored by CM's exponents.          

           Jesus Christ himself has told us that “strait is the way, and few are they who find it”. Christian Meditation, being a broad path, is a false path leading to a dead end. 

           One of the Desert Fathers, with whom the practice of meditation originated, maintained that “it is something we hand on to only a very small number of souls eager to know it.” That classic work on Catholic contemplation, The Cloud of Unknowing, cautions against the mantra and prayer word as being not for everyone - or even for many. The Cloud makes it clear that “this practice is only for those with a high degree of purity and maturity in the Christian life."

          So if Christian Meditation is so popular - which it is - doesn't that mean there’s something seriously wrong with it? It's a hybrid of Hindu and Christian meditation techniques, not meditation in the Christian tradition. Genuine prayer is never a technique. 

“By their fruits you shall know them” (Mt 7,16). Where are the fruits  of Christian Meditation? With maybe millions of Catholics in the movement(our little country parish now has two groups) why aren’t Catholic seminaries in the Western world full and Mass counts seriously up, instead of steadily trending down?

And what about the centuries-old mandate for discursive meditation (pondering on Christ and his teachings) as a prerequisite for emptying the mind in prayer? CM and CP welcome all-comers, no matter where they’re at, prayer-wise. CM advises - directly contradicting Teresa of Avila - that we need not concern ourselves about that. 

John Main abolished all distinctions between stages and types of prayer. In CM it’s ‘one size fits all’ - which for susceptible personalities opens the door to demonic influence, because when we deliberately still the conscious mind, its energy is deflected to the subconscious, which may heal - or harm us. 

            As Pope Benedict stated, as Cardinal Ratzinger: “the  seeking of God through prayer must be preceded and accompanied by an ascetical struggle and purification from one’s own sins and errors – “Only the pure of heart shall see God” (Mt 5, 8).

ABORTION IS MURDER AND IT HURTS - A SUBMISSION AGAINST DECRIMINALISING ABORTION

I do things at the last minute, when I can't put them off any longer and everything else has to be put aside. So for all you procrastinators out there, here's a submission on decriminalizing abortion you can plagiarise as much as you want. You have until 5 p m today, May 18. Email to alr@lawcom.govt.nz

I utterly oppose the change proposed by Justice Minister Andrew Little to New Zealand law in regard to children in utero.

The child in the womb is human. In all civilised societies, human life is sacrosanct. The right to life is the most fundamental of all human rights, and the pillar on which our civilisation is built. Remove that pillar and society collapses - a process we are witnessing now and have been ever since abortion was legalized: violence, abuse, homelessness, drug and alcohol addiction, a huge increase in the prison population and an increasing strain on 'the thin blue line' of policing and respect for the law, the root cause for the latter being the perennial truth expressed by St Augustine: “An unjust law is no law at all”.

To end a human life deliberately is to commit a crime. Until abortion was legalised, that was always and everywhere called murder. The fact that we can’t see the human life in the womb does not make that life any less human, and the fact that it’s the mother who ostensibly – because almost always she is subject to coercion - takes the decision to murder her own child, makes the crime all the more ghastly.

And certifying consultants, so-called, are paid by the Ministry of Health, so-called, paid to commit the crime. It’s murder, it’s a crime, and morally that means the person who commits is it a criminal.

If abortion is decriminalised, some babies will inevitably be killed at full term by partial-birth abortion. Babies at 20 weeks’ gestation are fully capable of experiencing pain. Think what a baby feels when at full-term or nearly so, in a partial-birth abortion the baby is dragged feet-first from the mother's womb, the 'doctor' applies scissors to puncture the base of the baby's skull, and his/her brain is sucked out.

This is the reality experienced daily in Victoria, Australia. Do we really want that in New Zealand?

The only completely authentic “health approach” to abortion is to outlaw it completely. Abortion kills the child and seriously damages the mother, often physically, usually mentally, and always spiritually. Abortion is not a ‘health issue’; it’s an horrific sickness issue.

This Government must reassess its approach, away from the negative ‘solution’ of abortion for unwanted pregnancies to an honest, holistic and positive attitude to families.

If pregnant women were given access to all the services needed to welcome their child and give him/her the best possible launch into a decent, humane society, the rate of abortions under the present law would drop dramatically.

If abortion is removed from the Crimes Act, and offered as Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern would like, to women who want access to abortion to have it ‘as a right’, our health as a nation will go from bad to worse.

MOANING BECAUSE SHE GOT CAUGHT (Letter to Dom Post, May 15)

 

 

“I don’t believe she suffered”, says Susan Austen of her mother’s death (Susan Austen speaks, May 14), “but it was cruel for her”.

 

What a damaging admission. Clearly the person who suffered was Austen, not her mother. Euthanasia enthusiasts tend very much to project their own grief and fear onto the terminally ill.

 

But I can’t summon up sympathy for Austen, whose plans as a convicted criminal for travel overseas “are now in jeopardy”. She broke a law that she (and very obviously, The Dominion Post) disagrees with. But this is a democracy, that’s the law, and she knew the consequences.

You can’t even grace her action with the term civil disobedience, because she didn’t make any attempt to use the political process, she did it in secret, and she’s moaning because she got caught.

 

She was convicted of a crime, so she’s a criminal. At age 67 she should know better.

OBEDIENCE BEFORE HOSPITALITY

I've been talking with a priest about the vexed question of 'intercommunion' - giving Holy Communion to non-Catholics.

It's got more vexed since Pope Francis failed to clarify Church doctrine to the German Bishops' Conference, who want to offer Communion to Lutherans married to Catholics, a response which Cardinal Willem Eijk of the Netherlands finds "completely incomprehensible".

Father said he gives Communion to non-Catholics because the charism of his Order is hospitality, which means everyone is treated as another Christ. I said I thought obedience to the Magisterium should come before hospitality. (St John of the Cross, for instance, has said that God wants "the least degree of obedience, rather than all the works we desire to offer him".)

Father said the bishop had given permission. I said New Zealand's bishops are notoriously liberal.  (Cardinal Gerhard Muller has put it beautifully: "Episcopal conferences can exceed their competencies".) 

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, "Catholic ministers may give the sacrament of Eucharist to other Christians only when a grave necessity arises". That means danger of death. It  doesn't mean handing out (and I mean that literally) the Body of Christ to Protestants on a routine, daily basis.

The Protestant religions reject the doctrine of the Eucharist. In effect, Protestants are the people who, when Christ taught that doctrine, "walked no more with him" (Jn 6, 67).


I asked Father if he'd heard what the Dutch Cardinal Wilhelm Eijk has to say. He had. I said if anyone sincerely believed the Eucharist is the Body and Blood of Christ they would ask to be received into the Catholic Church.

Turns out Cardinal Eijk says the same thing. Nice.

CHANGING INTO CHRIST IS 'UNACCEPTABLE' (Letter to Dom Post, May 10)

“One of the reasons the traditional churches have little support” (Letters, May 10) is, I suggest, that “a traditional understanding of Christianity” demands that its adherents change.

 

Christians are asked to change the way they live and ultimately to change the person they are, into the person of Jesus Christ. So people like Richard Dawkins, who think life's pretty jolly nice the way it is, and being intelligent can understand what Jesus Christ is asking of us, prefer to profess atheism. It’s easier.

 

Even for those who are not so bright, in a comfy place like New Zealand change is unwanted and, to use the ultimate put-down, ‘unacceptable’. For most people, unaware and untutored, God seems just too hard.

 

But as Scripture says, “his commandments are not heavy” (1 John 5, 3).

WATCH ME SWALLOW A DEAD RAT

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I HATE TO SAY THIS, but once upon a time, Catholic lay people could rely on the pulpit and Catholic press to be fed Catholic doctrine. 

Not any longer. In fact, not for a while now.

I receive monthly reflections on the Gospel from a Catholic Church source I'd rather not name, and although I've raised questions with that source in the past their latest email, which celebrates the Ascension, is just asking to be challenged publicly.

First up: 'Our liturgy is about celebrating what God has done in the world in and through us'. 

Our liturgy is about celebrating what God has done in the world through the sacrifice of his Son and his Resurrection.

Holy Mass is offered for four purposes:
1. To ADORE God as Creator and Preserver.
2. To THANK GOD for all his gifts, both natural and supernatural,
3. To ATONE and IMPLORE PARDON for our countless sins.
4. To PETITION God for grace and mercy for the living and the deceased.

So we see the liturgy is not about us. This 'reflection' shows how much understanding of the Eucharist we've lost in the Novus Ordo ('New Mass').

Next we read: 'We continue to experience the abiding presence of Christ in our daily lives ... 

Isn't this rather a large assumption? In fact, it's presumption. We experience the abiding presence of Christ only by obeying his commandments ("If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love" (Jn 15,10 - my emphasis).

' ... or else we wouldn't be here.' The necessary presence of God which keeps all creatures in existence is confused with the indwelling presence of God, to be found only in people filled with sanctifying grace (see above). If we fall into serious sin we lose that indwelling presence. This reflection, like so many homilies now (especially at Requiem Masses), falls into presumption, which in its persistent denial of sin and its consequences is rampant in the Catholic Church - but not (and this is really galling) in the Protestant churches as I know them, through my friendships with Protestants. friends. 

'May people  ... where women and children are continually violated, experience God’s message of justice, truth and compassion rather than silence and neglect' (emphasis added)._Women and children by the million are continually violated by abortion, but the Catholic Church by and large keeps quiet. The Catholic Church by and large neglects them.

'May the Indigenous people of this country continue to explore their personal histories. ' A religious organization could suggest that living in the sacrament of the present moment is more use to any people, not just indigenous, than dwelling on the past and any injustice, no matter how real. Aren't Christians supposed to put on the mind of Christ? Did Jesus ever moan about the injustice of Israel being ruled by the Romans?

'May we find Jesus in those we have been given to love, particularly in our family, our friends.'

"If you love them that love you, what reward shall you have? do not even the tax collectors do the same?" (Mt 5, 46). Jesus gives us everyone to love. 

And finally: 'Let us hear again Christ's call to each of us to move away from the complacency of a spiritual cafeteria to a church moving out to change the world.'

Amen! 

As a coda, I'll add that the 'hero' Edmund Hillary who's eulogized in these Reflections was also a hero to New Zealand's feminist movement in their campaign for the legalization of abortion in New Zealand. 

He's no hero to me.

1800 EXTRA COPS WON'T CUT IT (Letter to Dom Post, May 9)

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“The Government is getting creative” (Govt plan for 1800 extra cops, May 8) in trying to prevent crime.

How appropriate, seeing that a root cause of crime – a lawyer charged with dangerous driving, drivers fleeing police and child sex abuse, to cite the preceding pages – is abortion and its effects, which are totally destructive. 

Abortion is a main driver of depression, alcohol and drug addiction, which leads to violence, failed marriages and partnerships - which lead to broken homes and blended familes, which lead to sex abuse, which leads to depression and violence, all of which lead to crime.

The irony is, abortion itself is not a crime. Not for the mother, that is; only for the abortionist. But now Jacinda Ardern wants to sort things so the abortionists aren’t committing a crime either. So for every abortion you’d have two victims – baby and mother – but no crime.

So no victim impact report would ever be presented. And yet in terms of crime the impact would be horrendously destructive.

1800 extra cops just wouldn’t cut it.

PRIESTS AND THE WRATH OF GOD

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Why do priests, principals and lay preachers get the first and second commandments round the wrong way - and does it matter?

Last night with 100 people packed into a hall in Taradale to hear social justice campaigner Bryan Kemper from the US and parental notification campaigner Hillary Kieft from Taranaki, Kemper asked what was the most important commandment.

"You shall love the Lord your God", I said smugly.

But I was in the back row. Kemper heard a different answer from someone up the front and agreed with it. "LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOUR!" he shouted.

It was an inspiring address, about his awful, abused childhood and youthful drug addiction and how he'd eventually been converted to Christ - who in a very personal, direct way had convinced him at last that he was loved, and that Christ needed him to fight for unborn babies and mothers under threat from abortion. And he's devoted his whole life since then, throughout the US and around the world, to doing just that.

But it's obviously quite wrong to say - same as I've heard a priest and a DRS (Director of Religious Studies) say explicitly, from the pulpit - that the greatest commandment is to love our neighbour.

Kemper asked repeatedly, rhetorically, why the churches have been silent on abortion. He asked if any priests or pastors were present. There was one - and he wasn't a priest. Thank God, a Catholic youth group had come along. I just wish there'd been a priest to accompany them, in a roman collar, giving public witness to the faith they profess.

Maybe our priests think they've heard enough about social justice. Catholic priests and people alike are probably sick of 'social justice'. But what we hear about in the Catholic Church isn't social justice, it's social injustice. Because these endless workshops, articles and homilies are based on love of neighbour, not on love of God.

I was asked last night by someone in the audience, just what is social justice? I answered that it's observing the two greatest commandments. It's as simple as that. 

The Catholic Church has consistently put the feelings of wounded mothers, consciously or unconsciously mourning their lost babies, ahead of the feelings of the God who created both babies and mothers, and loves those mothers infinitely more than they love their lost ones. As Michael Voris has put it, the truth may not be discussed because someone will be adversely affected.

Jesus Christ said "See that you despise NOT ONE of these little ones". In fifty years New Zealand has killed 500,000 of these little ones. Their innocent blood cries out to heaven for vengeance, but the Church stands idly by while the evil effects of this holocaust permeate the whole of our life and society.

Premature births and all their associated problems. Depression, raised incidence of breast cancer, broken homes, 'blended' families, homosexual behaviours, transgenderism, violence - all can be linked to the tragedy of mothers murdering their own children. Addiction to sex, to screens, to drugs, alcohol, food - anything that can avert minds and hearts from the horrible truth of legalised abortion.

Who in the Catholic Church in New Zealand ever thinks, let alone preaches, about the wrath of God? 

John the Baptist had no such inhibitions. "You brood of vipers!" he said to the Pharisees and Sadducees, "who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" 

The wrath of God has come. We see its evidence everywhere. It's time for the Church to rise up and say, STOP ABORTION.

I' M FEELING NERVOUS (Letter to Dom Post, May 4)

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I’m not too happy about the Reverend Michael Jones’ blueprint for his “Advance Care Plan” (Letters, May 4) which gives his family permission, if and when he gets dementia, to go ahead and euthanise him. That is of course, if the End of Life Choice Bill makes it through Parliament.

Actually, seeing my painkillers make me wobble, and I have to get hearing aids, and I’ve been diagnosed with cataracts, I’m distinctly nervous.

How long have I got (if the Bill gets through, that is) before my family suggest it’s time I should make out "My Advance Care Plan”? After all, they’ll need to persuade me to do it while I still have my wits about me.

Or maybe not. They could make it out for me, and just get me to sign it, with wits or without, when they’re ready.

Of course, my family wouldn't do that. But you get my drift.

PELL'S INNOCENT TILL PROVED GUILTY

Let’s hope Rosemary McLeod is never called for jury service, because obviously she feels no need to hear evidence.

In The truth about evil men (May 4) she carefully hedges her accusations against Cardinal George Pell but by bracketing him with Bill Cosby and statements like “a priest might tell himself that he is entitled to fondle boys or girls”, she makes it very clear she finds him guilty when all he’s had a chance to say so far is “not guilty”.

 

We all have to make judgments, just about every minute of the day, usually on small matters, sometimes serious. But we need to remember that we’re called to judge only actions that are proven, and never the people who perform them.

 

Unlike me – or anyone I personally know - McLeod has encountered lots of “dirty old men” and instead of laughing it off as some might, has suffered from those unwanted attentions.

 

But that doesn’t justify her baying for the blood of a man who in a civilised society is innocent until proved guilty.

 

SEYMOUR DEFENDS HIS ODIOUS BILL

350 people crammed into the Havelock North Community Centre on Thursday night to hear David Seymour promote his odious End of Life Choice Bill.

A lawyer friend of mine thought they were about 50/50 for and against. A woman friend said definitely more for.

Clinchers, I thought, were the young woman whose family been told repeatedly that she was going to die, how she herself had sometimes passionately wanted to die. But she's still very much alive and glad to be.

A middle-aged woman talked about close, long-term friendships with old people whose families wanted them out of the way.

Then an elderly man said we're facing a tsunami of the aged and if this bill is passed, sometime in the future it could be decided we can't afford all these elderly people and some will have to go. He was laughed at.

That reminded me of my mother, Kathrin du Fresne, getting up on a chair at the United Women's Convention in the '70s and telling them if abortion was legalized the next thing would be euthanasia. They laughed at her.

Make no mistake - we're on that slippery slope already.

I knew I had to get up and advertise the BRYAN KEMPER EVENT AT TARADALE TOWN HALL, THIS SUNDAY MAY 6, AT 7 P M. So I kept my mouth shut,

But in two hours of debate not one of those 300 people said that life is a gift from God and is to be taken back only by God. God didn't rate a mention.

Not even, as far as I or a friend could remember, from Anglican clergyman Alister Hendery, who gave a most beautiful speech - but at the end of it, we couldn't tell whether he was for or against.

COMMUNION TO THE SICK - I CAN'T DO IT

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I’ve taken Communion to the sick in my parish, Holy Trinity Central Hawke’s Bay, for a few years now. I've never felt comfortable with it and I’ve reluctantly decided I can’t carry on.

I'll miss the people to whom I've taken Holy Communion, and when I'm not rostered to play the organ I'd be very happy to take them to Mass.

I should have said this when I finished up as an ‘Extraordinary’ Minister of Holy Communion at Mass. But I knew even that would mean the rest of our small team of ministers would have to take up the slack.

That was about two years ago. By then it was clear to me that the post-Vatican II innovation of Communion in the hand was a tragic mistake. It was never mandated by Vatican II. It was a deliberate manoeuvre by the Church's progressive prelates, only belatedly ‘permitted’ by the Vatican in an attempt to shut the stable door - but by then the horse of disobedience had bolted. The Church in NZ, where we love to lead the world, had the bit between its teeth.

Kneelers and sanctuary rails went to the tip, statues to garden sheds and we had the ‘New Mass’ (substantially rejected by the Episcopal Synod, never submitted to the Episcopal Conferences and never asked for by the people). Lay people, urged on by bishops and priests, were up and doing.

Handling and distributing the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ is a sublime privilege  which had always been reserved, until Vatican II, to the consecrated hands of priests. “To touch the Sacred Species and to distribute them with their own hands is a privilege of the ordained” (Pope St John Paul II). 

Church law is clear: so-called ‘Extraordinary’ Ministers of the Eucharist must be used only in cases of ‘true necessity’ or ‘cases of an unforeseen nature’, must be properly trained, and mandated by the Bishop.

There's no need to distribute the Precious Blood; in the Host we receive both the Body and Blood of Christ. Chalice bearers are unnecessary and increase the chance of desecration of the Sacred Species which commonly occurs with lay people handing out the Host - particles, each of which is the Body and Blood, soul and divinity of Christ whole and entire, are often dropped, ignored, trodden on. 

“By their fruits you shall know them … the evil tree bringeth forth evil fruit” (Mt 7:16,17)

Among the fruits of Vatican II, including the fruits of laity handling the Sacred Species, are sex abuse scandals, a dramatic fall-off in Mass attendance, use of the Sacraments and men in training for the priesthood.

“It has come to our knowledge that some priests deliver the Lord’s Body to a layman or a woman to carry It to the sick: the synod therefore forbids such presumption to continue; and let the priest himself communicate to the sick.” (St Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae).