The question is, is President Obama doing something inimical to freedom because he is over-reaching his own mandate in a morally outrageous manner? We know that he is. But let us also consider, instead, a different perspective: Is Barack Obama the most intellectually, brazenly honest President in US history? I do not mean, of course, that the 44th President of the United States is an honest man. He has obviously deceived, for instance, the entire Catholic Church of the USA. I am saying he is honest in as much as he is following the guiding principles of liberalism to their logical conclusion - astonishing coercion in order to defend liberalism from its critics. A 'pre-emptive strike' so to speak, for the Nobel Peace Prize winner over those who oppose liberalism.
For, in reality, the President is taking the USA towards a 'great leap forward', he believes, for the country. I don't doubt for a moment that various organisations who funded him and who support his liberal agenda are hoping, if not praying, for his victory in the upcoming US election. Neither do I doubt for a moment that his actions are wicked and reprehensible. What I do doubt is whether the citizens of the United States have the stomach to elect the only person who counts as a viable alternative to Obama, the traditional Catholic, Rick Santorum. Is Barack Obama the problem? Or is Barack Obama just the public face, the product, of a bigger and more worrying cultural problem afflicting the entire Western world? Some would say the US would never vote for a Catholic to be President because traditionally the US has had antipathy towards Catholicism, but that did not stop John F. Kennedy being elected in the 1960s. No. If the citizens of the United States of America re-elect Barack Obama at the next election, from now on, no matter who is his Republican opponent, US citizens will have made a preference for the contraceptive culture over religious freedom and their own constitution.
So, what is more important to Western man and woman? Religious freedom and the freedom of the Churches and thereby a fundamental principle of human freedom on which the USA is built, or, ubiquitous access to contraception and abortifacients? President Obama has posed the question. Do not be surprised if the President receives the answer for which he wishes. Do not be surprised either, if similar attacks on conscience are not made in the United Kingdom and Europe because when nearly the entire Western world believes that artificial contraception is essential to the sexual act, men and women will believe that anybody who stands in the way or who disagrees with the prevailing contraceptive trend is inherently more fascistic than the President who is willing to deprive those critics of their freedom, perhaps even to the point of their arrest and imprisonment, because, as well as attempting to coerce the Church into accepting the contraceptive mandate, Obama is also shining the light on the Church that wants to control 'what you do in your bedroom, who you do it with and how you go about protecting yourself'.
It is precisely because human sexuality goes to the very heart of our humanity that Obama senses victory. Obama surrounded himself with liberal Catholic aides who agree with his interpretation of how Faith should be seen and, indeed, managed, in the 21st century. Liberal Catholicism believes that neither God nor the Church should be involved in the bedroom. Obama would not have done this if he had not seen the vulnerability of the Catholic Church on this issue and the very human weakness of the citizens of United States of America, including Catholics.
It is precisely the intimacy of sex that means that it is where our humanity is at its weakest. See. Sex is so private, so naked, so intimate and so all-revealing of the human person's inner life and even soul, that it is conversely the area in which morally we are so divided and weak. If ever there was a symbol of how afraid of intimacy, total self-giving love, surrender, responsibility and commitment we are, the condom is it. If ever there was another symbol of how afraid of the same things we are, it is the pill, and the reality is that even the 'morning-after pill', Western man and woman will defend because you never know when there may be an 'emergency' - the emergency of a new life made in the image and likeness of God.
The point is that Obama believes that 'personal freedom' will emerge victorious over the Catholic Church because the kind of freedom the Church offers us is more difficult, more demanding of us and a threat to the new liberal vision of personal freedom. Of course, managing the terrible outcomes of our innate distaste for choosing freedom according to objectively moral principles is gruesome, but, remember, to liberals, the ends justify the means, no matter how many unborn children die as a result. Christ came to save sinners. Obama came to save sinners from taking responsibility for their sexual lives. That is why Christ is the Saviour and Obama is antichrist, but, let us be clear, he is not the only one.
For the writers of this Guild of Blessed Titus Brandsma live in the United Kingdom, not the United States and the Catholic Church has already seen Her freedom of conscience restricted here in recent times, so let us not be surprised when, rather than if, it happens again. In 2007, Catholic adoption agencies were forced to either sever their ties with the Catholic Church or to close by the Labour government under the Orwellian-sounding 'Equalities Act'. Trevor Phillips, head of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission recently applauded the fact that these agencies were no longer able to operate according to their consciences informed by the teaching of the Catholic Church on homosexuality, though really it was the Catholic Church's teaching on the family that was the undoing of these agencies. For saying that children require mothers and fathers, the Church's ability to place unwanted children with parents and families suitable to their development was summarily ended, only to lose, again, on appeal. The question is, how have we got to this point in the US and, in particular, in the United Kingdom, where freedom of conscience, the bulwark against tyranny, can seemingly be so easily brushed aside? How can freedom and oppression sit so happily in Western democracies side-by-side? Unhappily, or happily, depending on your point of view, our patron, Blessed Titus Brandsma provides us with an answer...
“He who wants to win the world for Christ must have the courage to come in conflict with it.”
Now, you could say that conflict between the Church and the State is as old as the Church Herself, but it does appear that we are entering into a particular time in the life of the Catholic Church when the forces of liberalism spanning vast continents are either mounting or are preparing to mount an assault upon the Church's liberty which is unprecedented in scale. It may not mean that the Church in Heaven receives countless martyrs like Blessed Titus, but it may mean that just in terms of the sheer scale of the persecution that the Church loses her full liberty to operate in the public sphere. Across the West, Catholic hospitals are under threat, Catholic doctors are under threat, Catholic adoption agencies are under threat, Catholic pharmacists are under threat, Catholic teachers are under threat, Catholic nurses are under threat, Catholic schools, universities are under threat. Perhaps, even, Catholic priests and Bishops are under threat in teaching from the pulpit the fullness of the Catholic Faith.
Catholic worship will continue, but liberal States will attempt to suppress Catholic truth and all those who remain strong in their Catholic identity will possibly be losers in this life to be rewarded in the next. For if there is one thing that the life of our patron tells us, it is that when religious liberty is attacked, the liberty to communicate Catholic truth soon follows. You may very well wonder why, if sex and sexuality is such a little, unimportant thing, that doesn't mean that much so 'why does the Church bang on about it', then why is it that it is the issues of sex and sexuality that are about to crush the freedom of the Catholic Church to operate in the public sphere? The answer is because, of course, sex isn't 'a little thing', it isn't 'unimportant' and the Church bangs on (or should) about it all the time because it goes to the heart of who we are, what we are here for and because the future of human society depends upon it.
Many have observed that Pope Paul VI's encyclical Humanae Vitae was never really taught by the Church. Well, like it or not, the Church in the West is about to be forced into explaining it over forty years after its widely ungratefully received release. It has to be explained now because an explanation is to be demanded of the Church by the State and, while there is a semblence of a free press, by the media. And that, dear brothers and sisters, is where we come in as bloggers in The Guild of Blessed Titus Brandsma. We know that both the Bishops of England and Wales and Catholic Voices will in the upcoming trial for the Church on our shores, explain Humanae Vitae to the United Kingdom. However, we, too, can play our part, however small that may be, whether we are to remain 'peripheral', or indeed not.
You Can't Make an Omlette Without Breaking a Few Eggs
There must be some liberals who have a vision of a new society, you see, because new laws are seldom created for no reason whatsoever. Less seldom are they made because its citizens want them. Sad as it is, that simply is not how democracy works. People in power make new laws because they know that this will have some kind of an impact on society. Every politician wants to ‘make a difference’ to society. If they didn’t want to do that then they would not bother to even enter Parliament. William Wilberforce, obviously, wanted to ‘make a difference’ to society and so he did. He had a vision. He helped to end slavery. Lord Steele wanted to ‘make a difference’ to society and so he did. He had a vision. He helped to introduce abortion in the United Kingdom.
And what a marvellous success abortion has been. Well, for some. It has not been a huge success for women and it has not been a huge success for children. It has not been a huge success for society. It has, however, been a huge success for abortion providers. Can you think of anyone else that abortion has been a huge success? I certainly can. The State. Remember that abortion did not come from society itself, but from Government. Like most controversial votes in Parliament, it was not put to a national referendum. You may well protest; “No, that is preposterous. Government does not like abortion. Surely, it sees it merely in terms of a necessary evil in response to those ‘unwanted pregnancies’ and besides which women were campaigning for ‘choice’ and women were dying in backstreet abortions and so something ‘had to be done’ to make it legal.
All that is true and yet, somehow, it misses the mark of why the Abortion Act was introduced. The real reason abortion was introduced into the United Kingdom was the same reason that the contraceptive pill was made available to all British women in the same year - because the State believed that there was a population problem. “No, no, that is impossible,” you may protest, “It was because women wanted choice”. No. Some women wanted ‘choice’, but the State wanted fewer babies being born. Both the pill and abortion are tools of the State to control population. You don’t believe me? Well, I’m sorry but this is simply not rocket science and it is certainly not conspiracy theory. If you make available abortion and artificial contraception to a country then fewer babies will be born. That is just the fact of the matter. Unless you did not want fewer babies to be born, then you would not have introduced it no matter whether your people asked for it or not. And today, if nearly every woman in your country is on artificial contraception and you are averaging 200,000 dead fetuses a year and you do nothing about it, as a State, then I would suggest that either State has decided to go to sleep on the issue, or to look the other way or the State is content to see it happen.
Still unsure? Well, let us turn our eyes to a country now infamous for forced abortion, forced sterilization and, we can safely assume, forced artificial contraception, in as much as it can be forced. That country is, of course, China. Over in China, there were no street protests from women campaigning for rights, since campaigns for rights in China, as we know, tend to be rather short-lived and if women died in childbirth the Government would not give it much of a second thought. There is, in China, a ‘One Child Policy’ and nearly the whole world knows that in large parts of the country, a second child can be forcibly aborted by the State against the wishes of parents. So, why does this ‘One Child Policy’, wreaking social and demographic havoc across the land exist? The answer is, simply, population control.
You still don’t believe me? Okay, well then let us examine the case of Africa. There has been little in terms of documented evidence of a wellspring of women in the continent marching on the streets, demanding abortion from their Governments. Yet, Governments feel entitled to give this service to their people. Though, to be more precise, a great deal of international pressure has been and is being brought to bear on those countries who did not or do not yet have abortion, to introduce it. The UN is constantly seeking to encourage, to put it very mildly, African states to accept abortion. Yes. In Africa, the drive for abortion is not coming from people on the ground, nor necessarily from the Governments, but from interests which are totally external, one of which is the International Fund Planned Parenthood. African women have not asked for abortion, but they have been given it. Advocates of ‘choice’ would argue that African women should have a ‘choice’, but it is still true to say that, as far as I am aware, African women have not risen up to demand their choice and assert their ‘reproductive rights’. No, the ‘reproductive rights’ of African women have been brought to them from the West and by the West. How kind and noble it is of the West to help Africa to destroy its young. Anyone would have thought the West had an interest in enslaving Africa or something.
You still don’t think abortion is about population? Okay, well then let’s examine another country, but this time one which has recently decided to go the other way. Russia. In Russia, it is reported that: (http://en.ria.ru/society/20120214/171313105.html)
‘The Russian Health Ministry has cut the list of social grounds that allow women to have a free abortion, which leaves sexual assault as the only excuse for women to abort their pregnancy. The 2010 census showed that Russia’s population dropped from 145 million in 2002 to under 143 million, with the death rate continuing to exceed the birth rate despite government efforts to encourage Russians to have more children. The parliament may soon pass a new anti-abortion bill that could limit access to abortion services and toughen criminal punishment for doctors who carry out illegal abortions.’
How very pragmatic of the Russian government. Russia is not tightening restrictions on abortion because the government has suddenly discovered its conscience. Nor has the government decided that feminism is balderdash and had a re-think on the woman’s ‘right to choose’. It has merely realized that population has dropped too low and needs to be raised and tightening restriction on abortion is the way to do it.
Let us ask the question, then, why was the Abortion Act (1967) introduced? To understand why the Abortion Act was introduced in 1967, we have to understand the ‘swinging sixties’ in which it emerged from Parliament. As we know, the sixties was the period in which the sexual revolution took place in the United Kingdom. The word ‘revolution’ suggests something violent that takes place that sweeps away an existing order. So, what was swept away? The answer is morality, or, to be more precise, objective moral order according to the natural law. What replaced it? Well, moral anarchy, of course. And with moral anarchy, what else was swept away? The answer is: the institutions of marriage and the family. “Ah!”, you will say, “But the State had nothing to do with the sexual revolution in Britain because this was a youthful movement of swingers and proponents of free love”. To which I can only ask, “Oh. Really?’
Have you ever considered that the sexual revolution would have been impossible had it not been for the mass media and television in particular? Remember that back in the 1960s, the Facebook site that helped lots of young adults to run rampage over London and other cities were just glints in the eyes of their future inventors. There was no internet in those days and without ‘sound and vision’ the sexual revolution would not have taken place. And who brought you the ‘sound and vision’ of the ‘swinging’ 60s and sexual revolution? Why, the BBC of course. What is the BBC an arm of? The State. We know the BBC is an arm of the State because we have to pay a tax to watch it. And do you know what the BBC is for? The BBC is for the State’s propaganda to be disseminated among the population. After all, it was the BBC who brought you The Beatles and it was the BBC who covered the sexual revolution. If the State had thought the goings on all a little ‘risque’ for the British public and had thought that the explosion of sexual energy brought about by the rock and pop bands of the time a danger to modesty then surely this arm of the State would have thought better of encouraging the youth to ‘rebel’.
The BBC was the instrument used by the State to break down the sexual taboos held by the overwhelming majority of British people at the time and what is more the BBC has been used to socially engineer British society and steer it through various cultural revolutions. Through music, comedy, soaps, current affairs, documentaries, films and the vast array of channels open to the broadcaster, the BBC has steered Britain through, as well, the acceptance of homosexuality, abortion, sex outside of marriage and a host of sexually related subjects. Now, of course, it is preparing the country for gay marriage which will be a veritable media coup d’etat, if you’ll excuse the phrase.
The question is, why would the State want to cause sexual anarchy, abortion, contraception, break down the institutions of the family and marriage and, into the bargain, erode and dismantle the Christian heritage of a country? The answer to that, of course, depends entirely on who is running the State and what the State wants from you. It just so happens that, perhaps naturally, the reason the State wants to smash the institution of the family, for example, is because the State wants you to be its loyal and obedient sons and daughters, not those of your mothers and fathers and most certainly not those of God because the simple truth is that if you are obedient to God then you are much, much more difficult to control.
Why was the Abortion Act introduced? As a tool of societal and in particular, population control. Of course, it is a free country and you can think differently. You can think its because the State recognised 'women's rights'. You can think it is because the State cared for women. But that is just what the State wants you to believe. The fact that loads of people now believe what the State wanted people to believe is not surprising. It's called propaganda. The Abortion Act would not have made any sense without the sexual revolution that built up to it, because in order to sell to the people the concept of abortion, the State had to get the kids loosing their inhibitions and fornicating more first, so that the State could close down the 'backstreet' abortionist and move the doctors from the backstreet clinics, to the legal abortion clinics. What? You don't actually think the doctors working in backstreet abortion clinics just packed up, shut up shop and went back home unemployed do you? Heaven forbid! Why let such talent go to waste!
Before the 1960s, if a young man made a young woman pregnant, society expected him to marry her. After the 1960s, if a young man made a young woman pregnant, society expected him to tell her to have an abortion, or for her to think of doing so herself. The sexual revolution had to happen in the United Kingdom so that population could be something manageable by the State through artificial contraception and abortion. If the sexual revolution had not occurred then the institution of marriage would have remained intact and people would have large families like they did in the 'bad old days'. That is called social engineering and that is what the State does best and the drive for 'gay marriage' is just the most recent example.
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