jenniferrobackmorse

Why I’m not worried about Gorsuch.

I know some of my friends are concerned about Gorsuch describing Obergefell as “absolutely settled law.” I would be more worried except for one thing. As far as I know, no one has a credible case for overturning Obergefell.

The conservative Christian legal community does not have a litigation strategy for overturning Obergefell, to the best of my knowledge. True, I don’t know everyone in that community. But I know quite a few folks. I do not know anyone who is even working on finding the plaintiffs and constructing the arguments for such a case. We cannot blame Trump for that.

And no, religious liberty cases do not cut the mustard. We need arguments that defend marriage, on its own terms. Marriage is good for society. Marriage provides justice and equality for children. Removing the gender requirement from marriage undermines its ability to provide justice and equality for children.

So, it is cheap for people to say anything they want, one way or the other. True, I would have liked it better if Gorsuch had said, “If a case challenging Obergefell were to come before me (wink,wink, knowing this is exceedingly unlikely) I would give it all due consideration and would tend toward overturning it.” But calling it “settled law” when there is “absolutely” no credible case on the horizon, does not disturb me all that much. His opinion on prospective pro-life cases is more significant b/c there may actually be some credible cases in the foreseeable future.

Would all these kids be marching in the snow for separation of powers and federalism? I doubt it.

Speaking of the pro-life movement, consider this. What would public opinion around the life issues be today, if the pro-life movement had confined itself to religious liberty and separation of powers and federalism?

“Roe v Wade interferes with the rights of Catholic doctors to practice medicine as they see fit.”
“Roe v Wade is judicial overreach.”
“Roe v Wade interferes with the states’ rights to set their own policies.”

All true statements, to be sure. But all utterly irrelevant to shifting public opinion in a pro-life direction. The pro-life movement gave a full-throated defense of the humanity of the child in the womb, the value of pre-natal life, the harms of abortion to women, and how abortion does not solve the problems it claims to solve. These are much more human, much more compelling points, with vivid imagery that stirs the heart. The other arguments are bloodless and sterile by comparison.

We need a pro-marriage movement that stops talking about religious liberty and starts talking about marriage. And I’m afraid I know why so few people are willing to talk about the rights of children to their parents. Once we say that, the next question will naturally be: “what about divorce? More children lose their parents to divorce than will ever lose them to gay parenting. Are you going to outlaw divorce?”

Trust me, that was and still is the argument. I was in the 9th Circuit courtroom during the Prop 8 case, when Judge Stephen Reinhardt asked Prop 8 defense counsel Charles Cooper that question. The courtroom burst into laughter. They treated the rights of children as a joke. Cooper stood there silent.

I was practically jumping out of my seat. “Answer him! Answer him! Say ‘You are correct. We do want to reform divorce, because current divorce law is unjust.'”

Divorce ripples through the generations.

American society, including the conservative and pro-marriage movements, do not want to talk about divorce. Too many people have participated in divorce, and do not wish to stir up guilty consciences. Currently, most of those people are either against the concept of children having rights to their parents, or they are simply silent.

But I think this is also an opportunity. Many people have been unwilling participants in divorce: children, abandoned spouses, grandparents who lose touch with their grandchildren, and many others. Enlist all of those people. Now, you’re talking about a real movement.

If children do not have a right to their own parents, no one has a right to anything.

Divorce Reform: Take your stand.

Representative Matt Krause of Texas has introduced a bill to limit no-fault divorce in that state. Ruth Readers: it is time to put up or shut up about family breakdown.

We have a petition that anyone can sign. It just says we support Rep Krause’s effort to limit no-fault divorce. You do not have to live in Texas to sign it.

Conservatives complain and wring their hands over “losing the culture wars.”

We can’t honestly complain about losing a battle we never even fought.

“Kids need a mom and a dad,” the constant mantra of the pro-marriage movement, is not nearly strong enough. “Kids need their own mom and dad,” is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

I’m sorry to get in your face about this. But children are entitled to a relationship with both parents, unless some unavoidable tragedy takes place to prevent it.

“I’m tired of your father,” is not an unavoidable tragedy. It is very avoidable.
“I’m running off to marry my secretary,” is not an unavoidable tragedy. It is a selfish act of injustice to the children of the marriage.

These are the divorces that no-fault protects. When people say, “but we need no-fault divorce because fault is too hard to prove,” adultery and selfishness are sneaking in the backdoor.

Conservative Christians complained about “gay marriage” harming children.

No-fault divorce harms children.

Conservative Christians complained about “gay marriage” being un-Biblical.

No-fault divorce is un-Biblical. See Matthew 19. Don’t whine to me about the so-called “exception clause,” aka “escape hatch big enough to drive a Mac Truck through.”

Why were people against gay marriage? I don’t know about you. But I know why I was. I saw that it would harm children’s legally-recognized rights to have a relationship with both parents.

We at the Ruth Institute were virtually alone in the “Marriage Movement” in arguing this way. And I am pretty sure I know why. Once you say, “Kids have a right to their own parents,” you have to be willing to start talking about divorce, single-parenthood and donor conception. Most of the Marriage Movement bobbed and weaved to avoid these topics.

The Ruth Institute did not. I am grateful to our supporters who have stood by us as we made these arguments. I am not ashamed to say:

no-fault divorce is an injustice to children.
single-motherhood by choice is an injustice to children.
donor conception is an injustice to children.
gay “marriage” and gay parenting is an injustice to children.

The Gay Lobby accused us of hypocrisy, saying we didn’t really mean it about any of those other topics. We just really hated gay people. Divorce and single-motherhood and all the rest were just window dressing.

Too bad. We talked about children’s rights then. We continue to talk about children’s rights, now, long after the dust has settled on the whole gay “marriage” controversy. We intend to keep talking about it.

What about you? Will you sign our petition, supporting Rep. Krause and his divorce reform?

Intentions for the Feast of St. Joseph

St. Joseph’s Altar at the French Market in New Orleans

My son and I visited New Orleans over the weekend. Unbeknownst to me: St. Joseph’s Day is a Thing over there. Or maybe the Feast of St. Joseph is a Thing among Italians everywhere. In any case, we saw a lovely and elaborate St. Joseph’s Altar in the French Market in the French Quarter.

I have a special devotion to St. Joseph. My oldest brother is named James Joseph, and was always called Joe or Joey. He died in 1996, and I still pray for the repose of his soul.

In any case, back to New Orleans this past weekend: I stopped to chat with the nice ladies at the booth. (There was also an Italian band playing nearby in the French Market. There is always music of some sort going on in New Orleans.)

I place several petitions in their box. It was already stuffed pretty full with petitions. Mind you, this is not some podunk, unsophisticated hick-town. This is New Orleans, one of the most vibrant cities in the world. It still retains much of its Catholic spirit and identity, not to mention its joie de vivre!

Here are my petitions for glorious St. Joseph, as St. Teresa of Avila used to call him:

For the friends and benefactors of the Ruth Institute.
For the complete healing of the American family.
For the success of Joseph Sciambra’s ministry to same sex attracted men in San Francisco, especially during the “Gay Pride” weekend.

St. Joseph, pray for us.

Authentic Reproductive Justice

“Reproductive justice” is generally code for “abortion on demand and without apology.” I propose we talk about “authentic reproductive justice,” which means justice for the child.

Justice for children means that every child conceived has a right to be welcomed into life. The financial condition or age or belief systems of their parents are irrelevant. Equality for children means every child is treated the same from conception until birth: cared for by their parents, and welcomed into life.

JRM West Coast Walk for Life 2013 — Real Social Justice Warriors

The shallow concept of “Reproductive Justice” that we have currently enshrined in our laws cannot last for even a single generation. Sure, men and women may be more equal in education and income. But, children whose parents get married and stay married have immeasureable advantages over children whose parents divorce or never marry. The differences among the rich and the poor, the educated and the less educated, increase in the subsequent generation.

Equality and justice for children means that every child has a right to a relationship with both of their natural parents, unless some unavoidable tragedy prevents it. Death, mental illness, serious illness, these tragedies separate children from their parents. Desertion, abuse, incarceration: the parent left behind may have no responsible choice other than keeping their children away from their other parent.

No-fault divorce: a structural injustice to the child.

“I don’t want to have a relationship with your other parent.”

“My relationship with my new sex partner is more important to me than my relationship with your other parent.”

“My new life and vision of myself is more important to me than my relationship with you.”

These are not unavoidable tragedies. These are acts of injustice by one parent perpetrated on their children and their spouse.

But you may ask, what do these have to do with “reproductive justice?” The concept of Authentic Reproductive Justice means that each parent commits to spending a lifetime in a relationship with the other parent that allows their child to have a functioning, supportive relationship with both of them.

That means:

treating the child’s other parent with respect: after all, the other parent is half of who your child is. If you disrespect the child’s other parent, you are disrepecting at least half of your child.
making sure your child can spend time with his or her other parent.
giving the child’s other parent significant input into all major decisions regarding the child’s life and upbringing.
supporting, not undermining the other parent’s authority and status in the child’s eyes.
having such a relationship with the other parent before even giving birth.
choosing the other parent carefully enough that spending a lifetime co-parenting is an imaginable and even joyful prospect.
and since all forms of contraception sometimes fail, only choosing to have sex with individuals whom you can treat according to the above criteria.

Authentic Reproductive Justice: Take your marriage seriously.

In other words, Authentic Reproductive Justice, which takes account of the human rights of the mother, the father and the child means:

get married
stay married
have sex only with your spouse
love your spouse

Our current understanding of “reproductive justice” that only considers “equality” between men and women, or “equality” in education, jobs and money is a superficial, dim shadow of Authentic Reproductive Justice. This is a technocratic vision, focused solely on material things.

Authentic Reproductive Justice focuses on the more humane, deeper realities of relationships, identity and love.

I can only think of one social philosophy that endorses this deeper concept of justice, and that provides the tools to bring it about: the Ancient Teachings of Christianity. One man, one woman, for life. If you are a Christian, especially if you are a Catholic Christian, please respect what Jesus is trying to do for us. Embrace it. Live it. Be grateful for it. Matthew 19. Mark 10.

Kudos to the Canadian Bishops Conference

The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops blast PM Trudeau for his plan to fund abortions and challenges to abortion laws in developing countries. The bishops state:

“Such a policy is a reprehensible example of Western cultural imperialism and an attempt to impose misplaced but so-called Canadian “values” on other nations and people. It exploits women when they are most in need of care and support, and tragically subverts true prenatal health care.”

Read their whole statement here.

Pictured: The Most Rev. Douglas Crosby, OMI

Bishop of Hamilton

President of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Read the “FAQs” backgrounder published by the PM Justin Trudeau’s government here. These monies are supposed to make up for the loss of US dollars, due to President Trump reinstating the “Mexico City Policy,” which prohibits the expenditure of US dollars on programs that fund abortions overseas.

H/T LifeSiteNews. Kudos to the Canadian Bishops!

Should a Catholic divorcee date without an annulment?

I encountered a bit of controversy yesterday in a Facebook discussion. Please help me sort this out.

Pretend you are a divorced person, who is seeking an annulment. By chance, you connect with an old flame from high school. Please read the following passage, and see if it helps you discern whether you should start dating before the annulment comes through. Remember: try to put yourself in this person’s shoes, AND try to base your answer solely on what you read in this text.

When I met my husband, Bob, we had to wait for his Catholic Church annulment to go through before we could even date or plan a marriage. We went a year or so spending time as friends, “brother and sister,” mostly phone calls and a few visits with his parish priest. I was in Southern California and he was five hundred miles away in the San Francisco Bay area. Occasionally we took turns driving back and forth to visit and, I admit, both of us were very physically attracted to the other. We’d been high school sweethearts forty years prior and had met again at our reunion. Because we’d been young and innocent together and grew up in the sixties, it was easy for us to feel somewhat like real brother and sister. Still, I remembered his kisses and those first, sweet stirrings of sexual desire from decades ago. We could not wait to make love. But we wanted to take the high road even more.

We could have moved past friendship, started dating, or moved in like so many do and started living as husband and wife but that would have been a lie. We discussed, argued, and finally agreed that we wanted something different than what the culture (and even some in the Church) told us we could do: we wanted to reserve sex for the true expression of a complete and total self-giving. In studying St. John Paul II’s Love and Responsibility we understood that it would be a lie to act out a full self-giving with our bodies before it had been exchanged in every other area of our lives. We also knew that masturbation wasn’t an easy replacement; that, too, was a practice in self-centeredness (not self-giving) that can never foster authentic love. We agreed to take the high road.

So, what do you think, readers? To date, or not to date: that is the question.

Follow up: Chinese “Family Planning” Policy

Yesterday’s post showed that Catholics should be proud of standing firmly against population control. The Pontifical Academies of Science and Social Science invited unrepentant population controllers to their meetings. These people obviously have some agenda other than the salvation of souls.

Today, as if on cue, Women’s Rights Without Frontiers publishes this heart-rending account of what Population Control really means.

in mid-March of 2014, a group of six to seven people from the Family Planning Committee forced their way into my house. They sent two people to watch my house, and four others to drag and pull me into a car waiting at my door for a while. My helpless mother also followed me in the car to the hospital.

Reggie Littlejohn, President of Women’s Rights without Frontiers

In the hospital, on the same afternoon, the doctor injected a need of oxytocin into my abdomen. I was trembling. I kept shouting and struggling. The doctor left after the needle injection. After a few hours of stomach pain, I started to see blood and liquid flow. In the evening, I had strong stomach pain, and after another few hours, I first saw the water capsule, and then the child came out. I dared not open my eyes to see [the child]. A lively, fresh life just silently got destroyed like this.

I cried and roared. Doctors and nurses took away the little life. I wanted to beg them to leave it with me, but I couldn’t speak. Afterwards, the doctor gave me another shot, saying that it was to stop the pain, but the pain did not stop. When they performed the operation to clean my womb, it was so unbelievably painful. Lying on that bed, I felt my body was cut open and broken.

Where is the outrage? Where are all the International Day of the Woman people? Where is the Vatican Academy of Science and the Vatican Academy of Social Science? The Chinese one-child policy is the most outrageous, most widespread, most long-lasting human rights atrocity in modern times. Disciples of Jesus, followers of Pope Paul VI and Humanae Vitae, admirers of Pope St. John Paul II and Evangelium Vitae, take heart. We are on the right side of history.

H/T Anne Morse

What’s with the Vatican “Biological Extinction” gab-fest?

A conference, held at the Vatican, is called “Biological Extinction.” What is this all about? What magisterial weight, if any, does it carry?

“The Vatican” is a broad term that can be misleading. In this case, the conference was sponsored by the Pontifical Council of Social Sciences and the Pontifical Council of Science.
According to Wikipedia: “The new members of the Academy are elected by the body of Academicians and chosen from men and women of every race and religion based on the high scientific value of their activities and their high moral profile. They are then officially appointed by the Roman Pontiff.” Thus, the Pope is ultimately, though indirectly, responsible for its membership.
This meeting was held behind closed doors. The National Catholic Register’s Vatican Correspondent, Edward Pentin has covered the conference. LifeSiteNews has covered the event directly, and extensively. Other news accounts appear to be based on either LifeSiteNews accounts, or a single press conference held prior to the event.
Among the guests was the unrepentant population controller and population scare-monger Paul Ehrlich. (He predicted that millions would starve in the 1980’s from overpopulation.) In the meantime, population decline is rapidly becoming a far greater problem than over-population. (I can’t believe anyone still takes this guy seriously.) The UK Guardian reported: “A world population of around a billion would have an overall pro-life effect, Ehrlich argued. This could be supported for many millennia and sustain many more human lives in the long term compared with our current uncontrolled growth and prospect of sudden collapse.”
One of the speakers made the following statement:

PAS President Peter Raven said that because of the threat of overpopulation, “we need at some point to have a limited number of people which is why Pope Francis and his three most recent predecessors have always argued that you should not have more children than you can bring up properly.”

Faithful Catholics will recognize this statement as being so misleading that it is a lie. As I said to the Christian Post, an evangelical outlet:

“Of course, the popes have said that people should consider how many children they can bring up properly. But this has never meant population control by governments, or unnatural contraception. Pope Paul VI was very clear on these points. So was Pope St. John Paul II, and Pope Benedict. And in fact, so is Pope Francis,” Morse said.

I would add that no pope has ever cited “overpopulation” as part of their reasoning. This statement by Peter Raven is a pathetic attempt to enlist the moral authority of the Catholic Church and the Papacy for his ideological agenda that has nothing to do with the salvation of souls.

What is inexplicable: Peter Raven is a member of the Pontifical Academy of Science, (not the President of the PAS.)

Does this body speak ex cathedra? It does not. The charism of papal infalliability does not extend to the statements of Pontificial Academies. Nor does it extend to the selection of members to Pontifical Academies, or to the invitation list of Pontifical Academy meetings. Whoever put together this guest list, could have found responsible environmental scientists who are not tainted by population control apologia.

The Catholic Church is the only major institution on earth that has stood fast against the human rights catastrophe of governmentally enforced population control. Pope Paul VI famously predicted it in Humanae Vitae Paragraph 17. The Church has stood against it.

They had an illegal child. The Birth Control Police knocked down their home. H/T Reggie Littlejohn, “Women’s Rights w/o frontiers.

The Chinese “birth control police” numbers over 1 million, arguably the largest law enforcement agency in the world. When a family has an “illegal child,” meaning a child for which they do not have a government “birth permit,” the birth control police may just come along and knock down their home.

We do not have to listen to the pronouncements of these academies. One crop of fallible knuckleheads invited another crop of fallible knuckleheads to a meeting inside Vatican City. That is all.

Let not your faith be shaken.

The Pope is Incorrect.

There: I said it. The Pope is incorrect.

Posters criticizing pope Francis on a wall in Rome, Italy, 04 February 2017. Below the photograph of the pope is the following caption: 'You've put congregations under supervision, removed priests, decapitated the Maltese and Franciscan orders and ignored cardinals... But where is your compassion?' Francis' main message as pope has been compassion. His reformist policies are meeting resistance within the church. Photo: Lena Klimkeit/dpa — Posters criticizing pope Francis on a wall in Rome, Italy, 04 February 2017. Photo: Lena Klimkeit/dpa

Faithful Catholics have agonized over how to deal with Pope Francis. We want to be true to the teachings of Jesus Christ, whom we love, and His Church, which we also love. Yet one of the teachings of that Church is that the Pope is infallible when he speaks ex cathedra on matters of faith and morals. How do we conduct ourselves when the Pope says something that seems to contradict the magisterial teachings of the Church, which were themselves promulgated by popes and saints and fathers of the church and Sacred Scripture? That is the situation we face today.

Our first responsibility is to tell the truth.

The Pope is incorrect.

Notice I do not say that the Pope is “wrong,” as that implies moral culpability. Nor do I say that he is “mistaken,” as that implies honest mistakes. I do not know his state of mind. Neither do you. Nor do I have the authority to judge or sanction him. Neither do you, unless you wear a red beanie. So, let’s get that out of our minds. Agonizing over things we cannot know, cannot control, or have no legitimate authority over: that is a waste of time. We cannot afford to squander our energy.

The two Synods on the Family, called by Pope Francis and the publication of Amoris Laetitia under his name, created confusion about key Catholic doctrines that had been clear. Pope Francis was incorrect to create this confusion.

The Famous Five Dubia of the Four Cardinals succinctly summarize the doctrinal situation. The answers to these questions are not difficult, if one intends to read Amoris Laetitia in harmony with the settled magisterium of the Church.

The answers are:
1. No, a divorced and civilly remarried person living “in a marital way” with another person cannot licitly receive communion.
2. Yes. Veritatis Splendor is still valid. There are still absolute moral norms that are binding without exception.
3. Yes. a person who habitually lives in contradiction to a commandment of God’s law, as for instance the one that prohibits adultery, finds him or herself in an objective situation of grave habitual sin.
4. Yes, Veritatis Splendor is still valid. “Circumstances or intentions can never transform an act intrinsically evil by virtue of its object into an act ‘subjectively’ good or defensible as a choice.”
5. Yes. Veritatis Splendor is still valid. “Conscience can never be authorized to legitimate exceptions to absolute moral norms that prohibit intrinsically evil acts by virtue of their object.”

Pope Francis has the authority and the responsibility to dispel this confusion. He is incorrect to allow the confusion on these points to remain.

But, what about papal infallibility? If we allow ourselves to think that Pope Francis is incorrect, aren’t we somehow denying the teaching of papal infallibility? I don’t think so.

Strictly speaking, he has not taught ex cathedra that divorced and civilly remarried people can receive communion. Both supporters and critics of Amoris Laetitia have argued that it does not actually change doctrine. The heterodox practices and teachings have emerged from the cloud of confusion.

Let us be clear: the pope’s letter to the Argentine bishops is not an ex cathedra pronouncement. Neither is a press conference on an airplane. The teachings of the bishops of Malta are fallible. So are the twitter feeds of papal associates.

Pope Francis has come right up to the edge of making an official magisterial pronouncement. Perhaps, the Holy Spirit Himself is preventing Pope Francis from crossing that line. In which case, his refusal to answer the dubia may be a blessing.

Nonetheless, he is not fulfilling one of the most basic duties of his office: to protect the Deposit of Faith, as handed down to us from the Apostles.

Dealing with this crisis of truth, in a Christ-like manner, requires us to be scrupulously truthful ourselves. That means saying only what we know to be true. Speculation about motives, intentions and states of mind does not serve us or the Church. It is a distraction, from doing what we can and should be doing, (which I will discuss in a future post.)

I will not promote this post myself in any way, except on my personal Facebook page. I close with this prayer:

Lord God, if these words be of service to the Church, let them be spread far and wide. If my words be not helpful, let them die here in obscurity. Amen.

Thank you Jimmy Akin

Around 2010, my daughter struggled with anorexia. I gained 15 pounds during her recovery at home. (“Eat, child, eat!!) Never could lose it.

I gained 10 pounds, after moving to Louisiana. Cajun food is the best food in America. No joke.

I have beat myself up about it for years, but could never seem to do anything about it.

Enter Jimmy Akin, Catholic Apologist Extraordinaire. He has been chronicling his weight loss journey on his website and his Facebook page. He has lost over 100 pounds. Fasting has been a key to his success. By fasting, he means, skipping a meal. Or two. A day.

So I tried it. I found that I can do it. I tell myself at the beginning of the day, I am skipping breakfast, or “I am not eating until dinner.” I find that I do not get all that hungry. If I do, I drink water. I aim to drink 2 liters of water a day. Or I drink diet soda. Generally, the urge to eat passes.

If I’m really hungry, I may drink a chocolate milk. That is it.

I have discovered how often I have the urge to eat because I’m tired, or bored, or think it is time to eat. But I’m not even really hungry.

I’ve lost my Cajun 10. I’m working on my anorexic 15. Thanks Jimmy.