the culture war

[Jerry Vilt]

Fighting the contraceptive mentality.

By Richard Bastien
homiletic & pastoral review DECEMBER 2008
Volume CIX, No. 3
Ignatius Press, 2515 McAllister St., San Francisco, CA 94118

(excerpts follow - some of the italics are mine, most are the author's)

"The switch from the traditional to the recreational view of sex is a result of the general acceptance of contraception."

"At the most basic level, what separates the two sides in the culture war is the ultimate meaning of life. On the one side, there are those who believe that life is essentially about having fun. You might say they have their own trinitarian god: food, fantasy and fornication. On the other side are those who believe that the purpose of life is to know, love and serve the one true God revealed by Jesus Christ."

"In other words, all rules of human conduct are to be found, not in some God-given law, but from within man's own reason, unguided by any outside principle. Modernism says we have no inner compass or standard that might direct our behavior, no internal conscience telling us certain things are good and others bad. Thus, we are essentially "free" to do as we please. Since there is no objective standard for what is right, freedom is not freedom to do what is right but rather freedom to define what is right."

"This points to the essence of what we call modernism, which is the primacy of will over reason. In philosophical language, it is variously called secularism, liberalism or moral relativism. In theological language, it is called the sin of pride, which is precisely what original sin was all about."

"And the one factor that most contributed to changing people's understanding of sex was contraception. Thus, the switch from the traditional to the recreational view of sex is a result of the general acceptance of contraception. If it were not for the latter, moral relativism might still be fashionable as an intellectual movement, but there would be no culture war."
"This might appear shocking to many people. Yet, it is a matter that is debatable in reason. It is part, not of the Church's dogmatic teaching, but of that part of moral philosophy called natural law that, broadly speaking, says that things function well to the extent that they are used in accord with their nature.

(five consequences of contraception mentioned - following is second one:)

"Another consequence of contraception is that, in addition to preventing births, it results in the killing of millions of human lives, it results in the killing of millions of human lives through abortions. It has been estimated that 50 percent of women who go to abortion clinics do so because of contraceptive failure. If one does not find that conclusive evidence of the link between contraception and abortion, then one might perhaps want to rely on the judgment of the U.S. Supreme Court. In a famous case, known as Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the court stated the following: 'For two decades, couples have based their intimate relationships on the availability of abortion should contraceptives fail.' So you have it on the authority of the U.S. Supreme Court that couples view abortion as a safety net for contraceptive failure."

[Jerry Vilt]

Spirit & Life
Human Life International e-Newsletter
Volume 04, Number 11 / Monday, March 23, 2009
http://www.hli.org

How Dare They!

Journalists and now Governments are rabidly defending condoms and attacking the Holy Father

By Joseph Meaney

Pope Benedict XVI embarked on his first missionary journey to Africa, and had not yet touched down in Cameroon when headlines flashed around the world screaming; "Pope says condoms won't solve AIDS." Quickly, the pundits and commentators went to work vilifying the Holy Father.

What did they expect? That Pope Benedict would change church teaching to please them? Or that he ignore the scientific evidence that the billions of condoms thrown at AIDS have only aggravated the pandemic?

Who could have imagined the cultural decay in the last 40 years? An object only associated with prostitution and moral degeneracy then is now a sacrosanct medical necessity ardently defended by the most influential governments and institutions like the World Health Organization. It is time that we stood up for the truth. Inform yourselves with our HLI Condom Database. (See Sidebar)

Any honest expert such as Edward Green, director of the AIDS Prevention Research Project at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, has to admit; "We have found no consistent associations between condom use and lower HIV-infection rates, which, 25 years into the pandemic, we should be seeing if this intervention was working."

The only countries that have managed to successfully fight the spread of AIDS are those which emphasized chastity - abstinence before marriage and faithfulness afterwards. The worst HIV/AIDS infection rates are in countries virtually awash in latex. The "safe sex"lie liberals are desperate to uphold falls like a house of cards before three small words; Condom Failure Rates. The risk of contracting AIDS during so-called "protected sex" approaches 100 percent as the number of episodes of sexual intercourse with an infected person increases.

Pope Benedict caused apoplexy in the press and liberal governments because he dared to proclaim the truth. His brief remarks were characteristically spiritual and reasonable.

"It is my belief that the most effective presence on the front in the battle against HIV/AIDS is precisely the Catholic Church and her institutions."

"I would say that this problem of AIDS cannot be overcome with advertising slogans. If the soul is lacking, if Africans do not help one another, the scourge cannot be resolved by distributing condoms; quite the contrary, we risk worsening the problem."

"The solution can only come through a twofold commitment: firstly, the humanization of sexuality, in other words a spiritual and human renewal bringing a new way of behaving towards one another; and secondly, true friendship, above all with those who are suffering, a readiness - even through personal sacrifice - to be present with those who suffer. And these are the factors that help and bring visible progress."

The statement above is the "offense" for which the ministers of the governments of France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany are now publicly chastising the Pope!

I recall a survey done several years ago which revealed that journalists were significantly more atheistic and non-religious than the general public. They are the ones outside the mainstream. George Wirnkar, our HLI leader in Cameroon, was shocked by his interactions with many foreign journatlists during the papal visit. They completely ignored the story of the joy and welcome expressed by Africans for the Pope in the midst of their obsession with this trumped up "condom scandal."

The attacks on the Holy Father and the Church have intensified in the last few months. Enough is enough!

Please join HLI in expressing our love and admiration for Benedict XVI's courageous and faithful proclamation of basic moral teachings and the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

[Jerry Vilt]

***The Culture of Life.

***The Culture of Death.

***The World of Culture.

***Discover, examine, analyze, cope with, attack, and defend the World of Culture: from within and from without.

***The Culture War.

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1. PREGNANCY: (conception to birth) is about growth (creation).

2. SEX: (reproductive process of human beings, male and female, and the pleasure thereof), is about making a new human being creating.

ABORTION is against (kills) creation (1.)

CONTRACEPTION is against (aborts) creating (2.)

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IT IS BETTER TO SUFFER EVIL, THAN TO DO EVIL !
("better" as in the ONLY good way.....re: good, great, better, best, perfect)

Suffering evil is confronting hatred.
Doing evil is generating, (causing), hatred.

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DATELINES: SEPTEMBER 2009 / NOVEMBER 2009

EWTN program Voices On Virtue:

Host: "How will the contraceptive mentality be overcome?"

Guests: "By prayer and fasting / sacrifice."

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[Jerry Vilt]

ACADEMICALLY CHALLLENGING, PASSIONATELY CATHOLIC

President's Address, August 27, 2009 - Nicholas J. Healy
Ave Maria University
5050 Ave Maria Blvd.
Ave Maria FL 34142
http://www.avemaria.edu

It has been my privilege each year since our opening in 2003 to give the welcome address to new students and their parents. I have used the occasion to set out the vision of Ave Maria University as an institution of higher learning committed to the Magisterium of the Catholic Church.
In many ways our mission and operating principles are ageless, as set forth in our mission statement:
...The University takes as its mission the sponsorship of a liberal arts education curriculum dedicated, as articulated in the apostolic constitution Ex Corde Ecclesiae, to the advancement of human culture, the promotion of dialogue between faith and reason, the formation of men and women in the intellectual and moral virtues of the Catholic faith…
Yet the task of education must take account of the social and historic context in which the university operates. Each age brings its own special challenges. The Catholic Oxford University had one set of challenges as the Reformation unfolded in England in the 16th century. The Catholic University of Eichstätt in Bavaria had another as Nazism swept Germany in the 1930s. It is the solemn task of a Catholic institution to teach the truth, in season and out, no matter what the prevailing zeitgeist.
Alas, it is precisely the idea that there is no objective truth that is a root difficulty of the present age, especially in Western societies. You may all have heard that silly comment: “Well, that may be true for you, but it is not true for me.” I confess I have at times been tempted to respond with, “Do you see that brick wall? It is a brick wall for me and also for you. If you refuse to believe me, I insist you try to walk through it.”
It is impossible to exaggerate how deeply this concept has seeped into our way of thinking, together with its accompanying ideas of moral relativism. It has made discourse on important subjects difficult, if not impossible. If this were a mere academic quirk affecting certain departments at certain universities it could be safely ignored. However, it has actually come to dominate many, many of our colleges and universities, not least, those considered elite. Moreover, it has metastasized into a wholesale attack on Western Civilization and, ultimately on the Judeo Christian vision that undergirds that civilization.
One of the most widespread manifestations of this relativism and deconstructionism is the inordinate emphasis on the “multiculturalism,” at times called “diversity.” Whole departments are given over to this task. Assuring adequate “diversity,” has often become the predominant institutional goal.
Now, there is nothing wrong with examining other cultures. The Church teaches that other religions can have elements of the truths about man and God. The problem arises when those championing multiculturalism insist that every culture is equally worthy of our admiration and respect. The one thing you mustn’t do, the one thing that is simply not tolerable, is to proclaim the superiority of Western culture. To do that is to invite charges of racism, imperialism, colonialism, or simple bigotry.
The incoherence of this mindset soon becomes obvious. It is one thing to admire and respect the ancient culture of China or Japan; it is another to put on the same plane the culture of ancient Greece with the culture of a tribe of cannibals in Borneo. Or, in more current terms, are we to admire the culture of Stalinist Russia or Nazi Germany as much as the cultures of 20th century France and Great Britain?
Culture, among other things, is a way of life. We, as American Catholics, know that some ways of life are better than others. Kindness is better than rudeness, patience is preferred over impatience, honesty is preferred to deceit. And then there are other virtues that are not obvious or everywhere accepted: humility, mercy, fidelity in marriage, purity of heart. What is the ultimate source of these virtues, this preferred way of life? For us it is the Christian faith; the teachings of an historical Person, Jesus of Nazareth, handed on to us by the Church He established.
And that is precisely the problem. Many of our leading academics and public intellectuals reject Western culture because they reject the source of that culture. They recognize, perhaps not always consciously, that to embrace the civilization that made Europe and made America, one is stuck with the religion that is the foundation and shaper of that civilization.
It is fashionable in certain academic circles to refer to history as “narrative.” Not unlike the concept of subjective truth, everyone, every tribe, every group or nation has its own “narrative,” its own explanation of its origins. It does not seem to matter whether the narrative is based on reality. For many in the academy, the favored narrative is that mankind has been for hundreds of years emerging from the obscurantism of the Christian faith. Especially since the so called “Enlightenment” the chains of religious dogmatism and superstition have been breaking, and science – along with our libidos – have at last been liberated. That liberation from moral law may mean enslavement to sin is never mentioned; probably not even imagined. Nor is it polite to note that it was regimes that explicitly rejected Christianity – the Nazis, the Communists, Khmer Rouge – that were responsible for killing people on a scale that would have been inconceivable even a hundred years ago.
For those able to examine the historical record with even a modest amount of objectivity, it is clear that it was Christianity that was the true revolutionary force in the ancient world. It is almost impossible to exaggerate how vast and deep was the transformation wrought in the consciousness of those who embraced the Christian faith. For the first time it became accepted that human life – every human life – was sacred; male or female, freeman or slave, adult or child, rich or poor. In time this radical revaluing of the human person began to be reflected in the stupendous work of the Church in establishing orphanages, hospitals, assistance to widows and the aged, multiplying the works of charity until they became the norm for all societies, even secular ones. And because human life is sacred, the Church from the very beginning adamantly opposed abortion and the common practice of infanticide.
It was not Christianity that established love of learning; that had been well advanced by the Greeks and Romans and other ancient civilizations. Yet it was perpetuated by the Church even after Roman civil society collapsed and much of Europe descended into barbarism. It was the industry and dedication of Benedictine monks throughout Europe that copied and handed down, not just Scripture, but much of the treasury of classical works of philosophy and literature. A few years ago a book was published How the Irish Saved Civilization. It may have been a bit of an exaggeration, but it is no exaggeration to say that Christianity preserved civilization and then vastly expanded it.
And because Christianity cherished the life of the mind, and understood that the cosmos was created by a rational and loving God, it was natural that Christianity embraced science; and the only societies where natural science became a self-sustaining enterprise were those founded by Christians.
What does all this mean for America?
Consider the establishment of our nation. The Declaration of Independence boldly asserts, “…that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
This is a profoundly Christian principle for a nation.
And we received from the Founding Fathers not just a document expressing certain rights, but their solemn promise to uphold them at whatever cost. The Declaration of Independence ends with the stirring words:
“…And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.”
This founding principle has endured for over 200 years, and has seen this nation become a bastion of liberty and a hope for millions of impoverished immigrants. The principle saw us through the Civil War
and the eradication of legal segregation. It inspired us to help secure the liberties of Frenchmen, Englishmen and those of many other nations in two world wars, and to stand against Soviet Communism at great cost through the Cold War. Without American resolution and the sacrifices accompanying it, all of Europe would have been swallowed and the gulags extended from Kiev to Ireland.
America now faces new enemies, and whether we will persevere and retain our liberties cannot yet be said with full assurance. Our most visible and obvious enemies are the militant Islamists. We are engaged in what are essentially counter-insurgency operations in two Muslim nations, while the whole Middle East seethes with anti-Americanism. In the coming years we will have to contend with China as an economic powerhouse, with a concomitant military capability and ambition. Russia remains a dangerous adversary because it deeply resents its loss of great power status, while retaining the world’s largest arsenal of nuclear weapons.
Yet the most critical danger is not our foreign enemies. It is the internal weakness that threatens our way of life, that undermines our will to survive. That weakness derives from the loss of the Christian vision that created America and sustained us through great crises, both internal and external. We lose that vision at our peril.
Again, recall that our founding as a nation derived from the Christian revelation that life – all life – is sacred. The abandonment of that truth has given us virtually unrestricted abortion. And now we see the first shadows of the idea that some lives, such as those of the very old, or very infirm, may not be as valuable as those of the young and healthy. We saw in the last century that once such an idea takes hold it is but a short leap to the conclusion that the lives of some races are worth more than the lives of other races; or the lives of some classes of people are worth more than others.
In recent decades and even just in the past year we have witnessed an astonishing growth of our Federal Government. It raises the issue of whether Americans are trading in their personal liberties for the security of the nanny state. This is an understandable temptation, especially in time of economic crisis, but history teaches us that it is easy to enlarge the state, but very, very difficult to shrink it. Limited government was one of the hallmarks of America’s founding; we are a nation “conceived in liberty.” Do we still cherish this right?
Of course it is not just the threats to life and liberty that the loss of the Christian vision has occasioned. The breakdown of marriage, indeed the attacks on the very idea of marriage as a sacramental covenant between a man and a woman, will have potentially calamitous consequences on family life and the rearing of children. The entertainment industry has become debased to the point that millions simply avoid the movies, television shows and much of popular music. This decadence threatens not only our sensibilities, but ultimately undermines our political freedom.
We are the beneficiaries of a magnificent legacy of ordered liberty, and a treasury of art, music, literature and philosophy generated by the Christian nations of Europe and the Americas. None of us contributed to that and few of us have sacrificed to preserve it. It was our forefathers who fought at Lexington and Concord, at Shiloh and Gettysburg, on the Marne, at Iwo Jima and at Normandy. It was the Saints who sacrificed for the Faith handed down to us, Perpetua and Felicity, Augustine, Thomas More, Patrick, Francis of Assisi, Ignatius of Loyola, and countless others. We dare not squander so precious an inheritance.
It is our task to bring to life these riches bequeathed to you, and to equip you to help restore what has been lost in our beloved country.
Ave Maria University is an antidote to our cultural malaise and to the philosophical and theological confusion that has given rise to it. Here you will be taught by faculty with the finest credentials. But beyond expertise in their chosen fields, the men and women who will be your professors will also witness the Christian way of life. You will thus learn not just abstract principles, but the concrete ways those
principles ought to be brought to life. You will find friends, true friends, who share the same fundamental values, and with whom you can collaborate joyfully and work through the challenges of adult life. For support you will have a sacramental life more vigorous than almost any other place and a Student Life staff dedicated to helping you mesh freedom with responsibility.
Our athletic teams are in a league whose motto is “Champions of Character.” We expect our student athletes first and foremost to show a disciplined commitment to academics and personal virtue on the field and off.
You will be introduced to new levels of beauty, truth and goodness. Through our superb core curriculum you will glimpse the unity of all truth, and the source and summit of that truth in the Person of Jesus Christ.
Do not think this is a hothouse protected from the chills of secular culture. We are committed to an engagement with the culture, not a retreat from it. As time allows you may be engaged with the poverty in Immokalee; with the culture of death in the new abortion mill in Naples; with those who have become apathetic about their faith or the values that gave them their wealth and security. Think not that this is a burden which will weigh you down. Rather it is high adventure! As noted by G.K. Chesterton, Catholic orthodoxy is a wild ride. The most distinguishing mark of Christians throughout the centuries, even under persecution, was joy.
Take it as joy to assume these responsibilities, because it is not for ourselves but for Him Who created us and then saved us; the One Whose meekness and humility still astonish, and cause us to tremble. In the words of Isaiah: “…he had no form or comeliness that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.” (Isaiah 53:2)
This is our King and Lord. It is for us to know Him and make Him known. We undertake this great challenge not alone, but under the guidance and protection of Our Lady, whom we seek to honor.

This is our vision. May God give us the grace to accomplish it.