ABORTION AND AUTISM: WHAT'S UP, DOC? (letter to NZ Herald, Nov 15)

I hate to say this, but someone has to.

Autism researcher Dr Hilary Stace doesn’t believe there are more autistic children now than formerly. In the ‘60s in the US, the autism rate was 1 in 10,000. By 2009 the rate was one in 110. Abortion was legalised in the 70s and took off at a similar rate.

At least three studies show that a previous abortion raises the risk of a child developing autism by 30 per cent and the pre-conditions for autism are prematurity and raised maternal age. 

The older the mother, the more likely are previous abortions. Prior abortions boost the chance of extremely prem babies in later pregnancies, and their chance of autism is 25 times higher than at full-term.

 And although I'm reluctant also to raise the bogey of vaccinations, there’s the question of use of aborted fetal cell lines in vaccines and its correlation with the rise in autism. 

Are pharmaceutical companies taking advantage of women in elective abortions, by commandeering their child’s body parts for manufacture of vaccines which research indicates are implicated in causing autism? Are hospital boards colluding with the pharmaceuticals?

Women are not told about these risks. Very powerful vested interests are denying women their right to be informed.

SO WHAT'S WRONG WITH BUYING A RAFFLE TICKET?

You know the feeling. Rushing into the supermarket, Christmas is round the corner, gotta grab the groceries - and your way through the door is morally if not literally blocked by a table, signs and smiling do-gooders, selling raffle tickets.

Catholics do raffles. Big-time. When 'im indoors suggested to our P P that at his 80th birthday bash we run a raffle, P P said, "Oh no, not a raffle! Catholics always do raffles".

And guess what, we did run a raffle and far more than recouped the expense of dinner for 180 guests.

But. Non-Catholics of the committed Protestant variety aren't so 'sold'. In fact, raffles fly in the face of their earnestly held, Bible-led convictions. So in the interests of ecumenism (and selling many raffle tickets), let me explain the Catholic point of view on raffles.

We share the Protestant principles on gambling, absolutely. Protestants may quote bible verses (Proverbs 28:20; Proverbs 28:22; 1 Timothy 6:9-10) to support their opposition to raffling, but when one examines said verses, one finds they are opposed not to raffles but to gambling. 

Raffling a Christmas cake or a hamper or meat voucher (just as a random example) is not gambling. Raffling isn't gambling. Gambling is motivated by a desire for gain, in other words it's greed, which is always sinful. 

But. A Christian of whatever colour must not judge someone who buys a raffle ticket as being greedy. A Christian must assume, in charity, that the buyer is morally motivated, as for example by a desire to give their family a Christmas gift they may otherwise well not receive. For people on a very tight budget, a $2 ticket on a cake buys them a little bit of hope, that they might win it.

Here’s what the Catechism of the Catholic Church has to say about gambling, which comes under the Seventh Commandment (Thou Shalt Not Steal): 'Games of chance (card games etc) or wagers are not in themselves contrary to justice. They become morally unacceptable when they deprive someone of what is necessary to provide for his needs and those of others.' 

When you balance the certainty of need for money of a worthwhile charity (Voice for Life Central Hawke's Bay, as just another random example) against the possibility that someone’s gambling habit might be indulged, or that they might be deprived of what is necessary to provide for his needs or others', by spending $2 on a raffle ticket, the latter can hardly be called morally unacceptable.

So relax. Get some change at the check-out and spend that $2 (or $5 or more if you're flush) on Christmas raffles - for a good cause, like Voice for Life CHB as yet another random example - with a clear conscience.

ABORTION'S RISKS PREMATURITY, PTSD, BREAST CANCER (letter published in NZ Herald, Nov 8)

“Abortion law needs to align with the times”, you say. 

So what’s changed since “the debate of 40 years ago”? An unborn baby is still a human life, with the same right to life as his/her mother’s. Women are still uninformed of the health risks of abortion: prematurity in subsequent pregnancies, psychological trauma, increased likelihood of breast cancer.

“The earlier the abortion, the easier for the woman”, you say. Abortion is never ‘easy’ for the woman, and always hard on the baby. It’s not “a health matter”. Its scientifically proven adverse effects on women’s health make it very definitely a sickness matter.

The Law Commission has ignored the weight of New Zealand’s submissions, which overwhelmingly opposed removing abortion from the Crimes Act – under which it has never been a crime for the mother, and rarely for the practitioner. So how can you substantiate your claim that most health practitioners want abortion to be “purely a matter between the woman and her doctor”?

To "align with the times" you should be reporting on the information amassed in the last 40 years on the unborn child and the risks of abortion to women’s health. 

It’s our right to be informed and your responsibility to report that information.

OUR SENIOR PRIESTS HAVE MORE THAN FALLEN FOR THE PROPAGANDA

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I'm reliably informed that last Friday the Processional hymn sung at the Leavers' Mass for St Peter's College Palmerston North, at the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit, was 'Underneath God's Beautiful Rainbow'.

Call me old-fashioned, but it took a while for its significance to sink in. I thought at first simply that it was ridiculously puerile for Year Thirteens - why on earth choose it? My informant had told me that when children at the cathedral were taught that song a decade ago or so, no one gave it a second thought. 

And at that, I did. I gave it a second thought. The last ten years have delivered the LGBTQ+ phenomenon. It's been introduced into school sex 'education', symbolized by a rainbow (ironically, the symbol of God's covenant with mankind). Adolescents are now encouraged to question their sexuality - but not surely, in a Catholic school? 

There were snickers during the singing, apparently of approval. And when I stop and think a third time, it's that for the first time, the term LGBT was included in a Vatican document in the recent Youth Synod. 

Now (I'm sounding like a Tv newsreader) to quote Canonist Fr Gerald Murray, "this is a terrible problem for the Church, some leadership are pushing Fr James Martin SJ's line, 'God made you this way'. It's not true. This is the agenda of the world. It's not Christian revelation. It's not the teaching of the Church. 

" 'Inclusive' in the mind of the gay rights activist is, 'grant us same-sex marriage, don't criticize sodomy and then start believing there really are transgenders and bisexuals. It's propaganda."

There's no point complaining to our bishop. Because +Charles Drennan, Monsignor Brian Walsh and Fr Joe Grayland were all there last Friday. They were singing 'Underneath God's Beautiful Rainbow'. They've fallen for the propaganda.


Please pray for our bishop and priests of the Palmerston North Diocese.


A liturgist (or should I say 'terrorist'?) of my acquaintance suggests I'm being unfair to Mons Brian Walsh, in that normally the celebrant at Mass doesn't know what the line-up of hymns or 'songs' (sigh) will be. And as a tyro organist myself, I know that.

But I also know that organists, liturgists and musical directors wouldn't schedule a song like 'Underneath God's Beautiful Rainbow' which for school leavers could at best be described as ridiculous and at worst, heretical, if they believed the priest celebrating the Mass would object. 

Maybe Fr Walsh has objected, and if he has I apologise. But it seems to me that whoever was responsible for planning that liturgy must have thought Mons Brian would not find 'Underneath God's Beautiful Rainbow' objectionable. And that speaks volumes about the worldly, non-Catholic culture prevalent at St Peter's and at the cathedral, and for that the person ultimately responsible is the bishop. +Charles Drennan.

Anon says: Our senior priests have more than fallen for the propaganda, they're promoting it. Another tick indicating the existence of  agenda to change irrevocably the nature and purpose of the Catholic Church.

'CARMELITES NEED TO UTILISE THE GIFTS OF GAYS'

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'It is a question of clericalism inherent in the very culture of the Church, which we must look at very honestly.' When I read these words in a Carmelite JPIC newsletter this week I saw red. Literally, as you can see. 

'Clericalism' is paraded as scapegoat for rampant homosexuality once more, in this instance by Bishop Vincent Long, Parramatta, the newbie in the episcopal chorus line I mentioned in my last post-but-one. Bishop Long was speaking to 'The Concerned Catholics of Canberra and Goulburn' - who should certainly now be more concerned than ever. 

And guess who should bob up in the November Welcom, #Me Too-ing about clericalism for all she's worth, but Sister Joan Chittister. I'd hoped we'd heard the last from her but she's obviously in Palmerston North Bishop Charles Drennan's good books. It figures.

What's more scary is that the Order of Our Lady of Mount Carmel has been dragged onstage  to join the performance of the New Church can-can by the Prior Provincial for Australia and New Zealand, Fr Paul Cahill O Carm, who shows he can kick as high as any bishop. So Carmelites world-wide should be extremely concerned also. (Although I'm very sorry to say many - in an order decorated with two Doctors of the Church - will agree with Fr Cahill who knows that too, otherwise he'd never have fronted up.)

Bishop Long says 'this celibate clerical club provides the ideal conditions for the disease of clericalism to fester'. In other words, priests should be married. Like Anglican priests. Excuse me, but what's that achieved for the Anglicans? 

Catholics - especially the Rad Trad push-back movement - should watch for the following buttons, pressed by Bishop Long and bound to be pushed again and again by clerics seeking to destroy the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church: 

• People of God: Jesuit, Marxist priests-speak, their term for the Catholic Church.
• Pilgrim Church*: franciscan-speak for Changing Church.
• A new culture 'of humility, accountability and service.' New? That's the 2000+ year-old Catholic, Gospel culture of the Catholic Church. Jesus instituted His Body the Church for humble service, and we its members will be held accountable at our particular judgment for "what we have done and what we have failed to do". It's also post-Vat II culture: priests "mortify in themselves the deeds of the flesh, and devote themselves entirely to the service of men … they should see to it that every part of their being is dead to evil habits and desires … let them practice the ascetism proper to a pastor of souls, renouncing their own convenience and seeking what is profitable for the man and not for themselves, so that the many may be saved(PO 12, 13) … (priests) should understand very clearly that they are not called to domination nor to honours (OT 9)… in a program of humble living (ibid) (like Jesus) who came not to be served, but to serve" (Mt 20:28).
• Voices from the margins and outside: code for homosexuals and the divorced and 'remarried'.
• Cultural and structural change: means advancing the "Church of Arbitrariness in which anything goes and we can finally, finally please the world" as German theologian Dr Markus Buning puts it.
• 'Incorporating the gift of women and the feminine dimension of our Christian faith':  just as the Church has done ever since the Blessed Virgin Mary modelled this gift and dimension by praying with the apostles in the Cenacle.
• 'Christian': Catholics get lumped in with Protestant (heretical) denominations. 'Blending' is good. It helps pave the way for the 'New Church', the 'Church of Nice', the Church of Arbitrariness.
  

Bishop Long winds up: As a religious bishop I often find myself in situations of conflict (because) bishops are custodians of tradition, while religious are more concerned with the people on the periphery. 

Pardon me? Where's the conflict? Tradition has always been concerned with people 'on the periphery' (the fancy franciscan term for bystanders and rejects), simply because Jesus Christ was concerned with people 'on the periphery'. Blind people, lame people - women with issues! 

But wait, there's more: Bishop Long's understudy, Fr Cahill, says that 'as Carmelite Family we need to utilize the gifts of each other, whether priests, religious or lay, gay or straight.'

Fr Cahill, you're lining up apples with oranges. Priests, religious and lay are supposedly following their vocations, meaning the state of life to which God calls them.  Being gay is not following a vocation. God calls no one to be gay, because being gay means choosing to live in serious sin. Saying we need to utilize the gifts of sodomites is like saying we need to utilize the gifts of unrepentant axe murderers, corporate swindlers and terrorists. 

'Serious sin' no matter what its colour 'is the act by which man voluntarily detaches himself from God, the one source of life, charity and grace. … The sinner has, so to speak, obliged God to break all ties of friendship with him' (Fr Gabriel of St Mary Magdalen OCD, Divine Intimacy (aka the Carmelite bedside book).

'In our (Carmelite) ministries we need to honestly (sic) evaluate our systems … for any traces of clericalism (and) reform those systems. We need to ensure that those "in formation" are prepared for life and ministry based on mutuality not exclusion' etc. We can conclude therefore that being 'gay' - being a sodomite and living in serious sin - does not exclude people from formation in Carmel. 

'Ministry that is based moreover, on incarnate grace not dualism.' But 'gays' - sodomites - have rejected that incarnate grace . By choosing a way of life that is seriously sinful they have excluded themselves from all Christian ministry.

It was truly fiendishly cunning to inject the Catholic priesthood with the deadly bacillus of homosexuality, which has all but destroyed the moral authority of the Church and of course is loved by the media and the world - which Pope Francis and his New Church proponents so ardently wish to embrace. And to nurture that bacillus by eliminating the sense of sin and our need for the Sacrament of Penance, where Christ waits to forgive and heal anyone who repents of their homosexual lifestyle. 

In one fell swoop, by attacking 'clericalism' Pope Francis attacks the authentic priesthood and promotes the evil of homosexuality. The definition of clericalism is the abuse of power by the clergy, and since Vatican II that abuse has been exercised chiefly in the clergy's abandonment of the Gospel and Church teaching by not stigmatizing very grave sins like sodomy.

Le clericalism - voila l'ennemi!' (Behold the enemy - clericalism!') was actually the cry of Masonic secularism in 19th century France, when schools were secularised, religious orders expelled, divorce was introduced and the Concordat with the Holy See abolished. The clericalism so despised by Pope Francis et al is seen by the Pontiff to be, fundamentally, the traditional model of Church hated by Freemasons and Modernists.  

We're all familiar with the caricature of people talking about the end times, standing on street corners, ridiculed and put down. Well, back in May it was a Dutch Archbishop, Jacobus Cardinal Eijk, who waved a banner so to speak, on the internet, quoting Article 675 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

'Before Christ's Second Coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the Faith of many believers. The persecution … will unveil the 'mystery of iniquity' in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth.

And Venerable Archbishop Fulton J Sheen - a Catholic household word in NZ in the 50s -  has said, 
'We are living in the days of the Apocalypse .. the Mystical Body of Christ and the Mystical Body of Antichrist are beginning to draw up the battle lines … There will be a counterfeit church. Christ's Church (the Catholic Church) will be one. And the False Prophet will create the other. 

"The false church will be worldly, ecumenical and global. It will be a loose federation of churches and religions forming some type of global association. The mystical body on earth today will have its Judas Iscariot and he will be the false prophet. Satan will recruit him from among our bishops. … 

"Our Lord tells us that he will be so much like Himself that he would deceive even the elect. … Because his religion will be brotherhood without the fatherhood of God, he will deceive even the elect. He will set up a counter-church which will be the ape of the Church, because he, the Devil, is the ape of God. It will be a mystical body of the Antichrist that will in all externals resemble the Mystical Body of Christ."

In 2016 in an unguarded moment with the German magazine Der Spiegel Pope Francis dropped a rather large and heavy hint: "It is not to be excluded that I will enter history as the one who split the Catholic Church".

And get this: Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen says "He (the Antichrist) will have one great secret which he will tell to no one: he will not believe in God."

I recall what my Protestant friend said recently, "I think Pope Francis doesn't believe in God", and the hairs rise on the back of my neck. 





*A Pilgrim in a Pilgrim Church is the book disgraced Milwaukee Archbishop Robert Weakland wrote to announce his 'coming out' after covering up sexual abuse by priests in his Archdiocese to the tune of bankruptcy for compo to victims of abuse ,and embezzling half a million dollars of archiocesan funds to pay off his blackmailing former partner. 

Anon says: Your list of buzz phrases from Bp Long is interesting and useful.  

THIS 'HEALTH ISSUE' IS A VERY SICK JOKE (letter to Dom Post, October 28)

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Calling abortion a ‘health issue’ is a joke, and a very sick joke at that. 

There’s no such thing as a safe or 'healthy' abortion. Of 1.5 million women who had medical abortions in the US over 11 years 14 died, 612 were hospitalised, 58 had ectopic pregnancies, 339 had blood transfusions and 256 suffered infections.

One abortion carries a 30 per cent risk of complications in future pregnancies. Following an abortion women are more likely to have to use IVF. They may be under enormous pressure, from partner, family or abortion provider to act like nothing happened and can develop PAS (post-abortion syndrome). Abortion increases prematurity in subsequent pregnancies with its risks of infant death and disability. Shall I go on?

Only in the alternative universe of abortion activism could a procedure which is always violent and always ends in death be called ‘a health issue’. Minister of Health Andrew Little is on foreign turf and looks uncomfortable, as well he may.

This ‘health issue’ is such an horrific assault on women, I’m wondering if Little and ALRANZ’ s Terry Bellamak are using the same PR firm as Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince.

BISHOP CHARLES DRENNAN CHANGES THE SUBJECT

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"Even Satan reacts to the stench of sodomy, leaving the scene in disgust once satisfied that the foul deed is accomplished. How much more satisfying, to entice priests to perpetrate the unspeakable act on innocent souls."

Since Vatican II, the Catholic Church has cosied up to the world to such effect, she's lost that sense of revulsion at the act of sodomy so eloquently expressed in this exchange between Jesus Christ and St Catherine of Siena.

Kowtowing to the values of the world, many priests now use the world's word for sodomites: 'gays'. But mostly priests avoid any mention of homosexual practice - and any or all aspects of sexuality as framed so well in terms of Catholic doctrine by Pope Paul VI in Humanae Vitae.

For instance, in the October Welcom Palmerston North's Bishop Charles Drennan reports on the recent 'professional development week' for NZ priests. ('Professional'? The priesthood is now a profession? I thought it was a vocation.) At that happening in Christchurch they changed the subject from the malaise which threatens the very life of the Catholic Church - rampant sodomy and predator priests - to 'clericalism'. 

Bishop Charles says he loathes clericalism. It makes him 'shudder'. Ah, how do you feel about sodomy, +Charles? 

As for instance, practised by Monsignor Luigi Capozzi, a drug dealer busted by the Vatican police in an orgy at a Vatican apartment with a senior official at the Pontifical Council of Legislative Texts, a protégé of Cardinal Coccopalmerio who is one of the Pope's inner circle? Practised apparently with impunity, as Capozzi was not handed to the Italian authorities for prosecution?

Or by Monsignor Battista Ricca, a notorious sodomite who enjoys the Pope's personal protection and curial promotion? It was Ricca who occasioned the Pope's most famous remark, "Who am I to judge?" That typical, ingenious, Jesuitical avoidance of the subject - Ricca's international record as a sodomite and his promotion by Pope Francis - turned a potential for serious damage to the pontifical image into a huge coup in the eyes of the media and the world.

So, +Charles and the rest of NZ's bishops have hastened to pick up their skirts and join the international episcopal chorus line, blaming clericalism instead of homosexuality in the clergy for the crisis in the Church. And why?

For one thing, because the world and its media love 'gays', and the Church under Pope Francis wants more than anything  else to be popular. (And to climb the hierarchical ladder in the Church under Pope Francis, a bishop needs to be popular. To be on the winning side.) 

But more sinister is the other thing: going after clericalism allows bishops to go after traditional, orthodox priests - and encourages lay people who like Pope Francis want to 'meet people where they're at' to complain about those priests as they have in this diocese, in Tararua, Hastings, Palmerston North and Marton. 

Traditional, orthodox priests preach the Gospel and Church doctrine, instead of squirming in mock humility, trying to be just an ordinary guy, putting the Church down (especially those pre-Vatican II antics like wearing hats and mantillas) and fancying themselves, in their Sunday homilies, as Agony Uncles instead of priests. Priests loyal to Tradition 'read the black, do the red' and may even wear a cassock or beretta - until they're told not to, like at least one priest in the Palmerston North Diocese. 

Or until they decide they've had enough, like Fr Bryan Buenger of Tararua Parish, and go back home to the US. 

In  Welcom +Charles veers off-track from the chase of clericalism only to pursue 'a radical change in governance', which in its plea for 'diversity at the Bishops' table' is not 'inching towards shared insight' so much as inching towards what German theologian Dr Markus Buning describes as "a new Church from Francis". 

This 'new Church', says Dr Buning, is "the Church of arbitrariness, in which anything goes and one can finally, finally please the world; yes, where one may finally expect the praise of nearly everybody." Features of this "new Church", he warns, will be "intercommunion, Communion for 'remarried' divorcees, blessing of same-sex partnerships, Masses without clear rubrics, everything ad libitum (the way you like it).

According to Dr Buning, in planning this revamped Church, the Pope's "episcopal vassals" must themselves stand accused of clericalism, of "a form of bourgeois episcopalism which aims at only one thing: to please the world". 

This episcopalism, he says, "blames everything on the lower clergy who are supposedly infected by this self-aggrandizing clericalism. Those priests are being defamed who have wished only one thing: to be loyal priests!" 

And hooray I say, for Dr Buning, who wants to know how bishops used their power over recent decades while kneelers and statues and sanctuary rails were being thrown out, while homilies were turning heretical, when communicants were encouraged to receive the Lord of lords with grubby fingers and sacrilegious hearts? 

He speaks of "office drawers of German ordinariates filled with letters of complaint concerning these matters and most probably the letters have already been shredded". 

"As long as these bishops do not exercise their ecclesiastical office as it is given to them by God and as it is exercised according to the Church's tradition, they are facing the accusation of conformist clericalism which is not willing to fight the abuses in this Church."

Pity the poor layman/woman, even those of the Protestant variety: 

• A devout Catholic, a guy who'd never speak and probably never even thinks ill of anyone - said to me yesterday, "I don't know what to think about Pope Francis". I just looked at him (meaningfully, I hope).  
• Then there's the woman who says she has to suppress an urge to run screaming from the church during her PP's Sunday sermons. 
• And a church-going, bible-reading Protestant who says, "I don't think Pope Francis believes in God".

 'Anon' says: Julia, your piece is tough but necessary.  I missed this Dr Buning, he makes some good points.  He has seen right through clericalism and the big game.

I was fascinated by your description of priests becoming 'agony uncles', defined as a man who answers letters in an agony column.  Dr Buning speaks of 'office drawers ....filled with letters of complaint'.  From what I hear there are two classes of letters.  If a parishioner complains a priest is too orthodox (too Catholic), the priest likely gets a reprimand.  If the complaint is about a priest being un-Catholic, well, don't expect much to happen visibly or otherwise.  As I say, from what I hear.  I also understand there are a lot of letters.

There is no point getting upset about the loss of good priests.  If the laity wont fight for them, expect to lose them. Crying into our lattes is not going to fix anything.