My crazy pastor has put a couple of crosses, one pink, one blue on the lawn of our church with the words "Respect Life" written on them. I think it is offensive. There are many people who live in the neighborhood who are not Catholic and I don't think we have the right to force our political or religious views on them.

Sincerely,

Ms. B. Gottun

I can only think of the words of St. Paul, "May I never boast except in the cross of Christ." (Gal 6:14)

It seems that everyone but the Catholic Church has the right to offend. The Church is one of the few organizations that is still expected to apologize for its very existence. Why is this? I wish I had an answer. I don't. I suspect that it is the Church's job to be offensive. If we are faithful to Christ we are going to make people angry. Jesus was an affront to his times and if we are His followers we will be an affront to ours!

Abortion is just too vital an issue to be quiet about. It is murder, quiet, dignified, polite murder. The people who have abortions, who perform abortions, who legislate for abortions, who vote for those who legislate for abortions are murderers. They stop, as the saying goes, a human heart from beating.

At this point I have to say that if we confess our sins, God is quick to forgive. If anyone reading this has had or participated in an abortion, God will readily forgive your sin, as He has been quick to forgive my many sins. 

However, we have a problem when we decide that an abortion is a human right and fail to call it a sin. Then we put ourselves beyond God’s grace and mercy. Yes, you heard me. When we insist that sin is virtue we put ourselves beyond God’s reach.

I have a friend whose opinion I greatly respect, the pastor of a church nor far from yours. A politician came to ask his support the other day and this good priest asked the question he asks of all politicians, "Do you oppose abortion in all situations?" The politician said that he was running for an office in which the question would never come up. 

The priest said, "That isn't what I asked you. Do you oppose all abortions?" 

The candidate said, "Father, though I personally oppose abortions, I have to uphold the law of the land."

To which the good father responded, "Well, that's what the Nazis said." 

When we think of political evil, we may well think of the Nazi horror. Even some pacifists say that the war against the Nazis was the "one good war" fought by the "greatest generation."   I think most of us would think that the Nazis were beyond God's mercy and to the extent that they called sin virtue and made murder a legitimate policy of the state, I suppose they were beyond God’s mercy. They had committed the sin against the spirit (Mat. 12:31), freely putting themselves beyond God's embrace.

People often question me about the sin against the Spirit. I think that it is a two sided coin. 

The first side is despair. It is to say that my sin is too big for God to forgive.

The second side is still worse. When I believe that my sin is not sin at all and I do not need God's forgiveness, I commit the sin of presumption. In fact, God may well need my forgiveness for not living up to my expectations. To become God's judge is a horrible sin, but that is what the Nazis did. They produced a sanitized Gospel in which Jesus was an Aryan super hero, stripped of Jewish myths. Our arrogant culture does the same thing when we produce the Jesus of Hollywood, the "Rebel without a Church," who blesses our every vice.

I was surfing the channels the other night and stopped at the comedy channel on which a comedienne was trashing Brittney Spears for being a bad mother. The comedienne asked, "Why should Spears have been a mother without being responsible?" (So far, so good.) "Being a mother is no big deal. Anybody can be a mother. I (the comedienne) would have been a mother three times if I had gone through with any of my pregnancies." The audience which had been laughing up to this point, roared and applauded and whistled its approval. My stomach sank.

They were laughing at the dismemberment and murder of unborn children.  What started out as an "unfortunate necessity in rare cases" is now a cause for drunken laughter in comedy clubs. The greatest generation has somehow given way to the most narcissistic, spoiled, self indulgent generation. What wrath must God have in store for this sorry excuse for a culture?

So, let us who want to be Catholic dare to be offensive. In a culture where murder becomes entertainment the only sane thing to do is to be offensive. The Roman emperors who offered murder in the arena to entertain the crowd, tried to snuff out the faith because they found it offensive and politically incorrect.  Well, the Coliseum is in ruins. The Basilica of St. Peter still stands. Let God arise and His enemies be scattered!

Sincerely,

Rev. Know-It-All