This is from “A Man for All Seasons”, but it is the central point:

Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
Roper: Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that!
More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!

In the previous post I noted Martin Luther King Jr. was a big proponent of the natural law because that is the only way law can protect the weak.  If law becomes merely “Man’s Law”, it will become the law as defined by the rich and powerful, and as the Occupy movement is protesting, the 1% will not hold themselves to account, but find every petty violation they can think of to oppress those that aren’t part of the oligarchy. The petty violations make them “convicts” with an arrest record.  William K Black (author of “The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One) has pointed to blatant fraud, Karl Denninger (author of “Leverage”). Both constantly ask “Where are the Handcuffs?” for those who looted the system in the big banks and wall street

It is even worse than that. At least I can go to a local credit union. I can escape from some of the 1% in the crony capital marketplace. I can’t escape the civil and criminal justice system. Clarence Thomas recounts in his book how in the pre-civil-rights south he was told the police could arrest him and he would go to prison on some charge they made up and no one would defend him.  The civil rights movement went beyond people of color to women and the gay community, and although I disagree with the irrational gender feminism, I remember my Mother worked (before she married and had me) and she was the smartest person in the office but paid far less than “the idiots that would mess up her files”.  Gays could be beaten and the cops would do nothing – assuming the cops weren’t the ones doing the beating – nor would prosecutors.  That needed to change too.

What that comes down to is that everyone needs access to the courts, and needs to have their cases considered by the merits of the case, not who the plaintiff or defendant are, nor what they may have done or do in their personal lives, nor by their appearance.  Judges hate pro-se defendents or even lawyers who defend themselves (which might be foolish, but at least they know the courtroom procedure).  If I can’t find a lawyer to defend me, can I even fight an unjust speeding ticket?  Cut off access to lawyers, you cut off access to the courts and the law.    If it is serious enough, and you truly can’t afford it, there are overworked public defenders.  Otherwise if you aren’t in the 1% you will have to suffer economic destruction even if you are innocent.  Or if it is a civil matter, and not one of these “off the shelf” class action things like asbestos, maybe a lawyer will take your case on contingency or maybe not at all.  And if he doesn’t like or approve of you, will he really be able to defend you?

That was what Thomas More was about.  He was a judge.  And completely and totally honest.  He would rule against the wealthy when they did wrong, but against the poor when they had no case.  It was purely based upon the letter of the law.  Those thick but valid laws of men.

When the King decided to invade the territory of the church and redefine marriage (in this case it was Divorce, and complicated as the Pope already granted one annulment).  But civil authority had adopted the idea of legitimate and illegitimate children in the same way they took over the definition of marriage, so the law itself was bastardized.

Because Thomas More was known to never compromise, and to be totally honest, the King wanted him to declare his Marriage valid by taking an oath.  His approval would have told all of England that the Marriage was founded with the proper authority.  Instead he remained silent as he honestly did not consider it valid – he did not speak against it for the law said to do so would be treason, so he found a third way.  He was eventually incarcerated in the Tower of London.  They found false witnesses and he lost both the case and his head.  But the legitimacy of the law itself was executed, stating “I die the king’s good servant, and God’s first“.  So when the sovereign, a capricious and evil king or judge, makes an evil decision, who do you serve?

And he was among the 1%, but not one of them.  He did not abuse his position or claim privilege.  Nor did he seek to use the law to impose his ideas, to lead a legal revolution.  Just remain silent.  There were rights starting with the Magna Carta which was already a few hundred years old at the time.

Stay tuned for post #2 in this series …

“Because man is a sacred element of secular life,” Stafford remarked, “man should not be held to a supreme power of state, and a person’s life cannot ultimately be controlled by government.”

“For the next few years, Gethsemane will not be marginal. We will know that garden,” Stafford said, comparing America’s future with Obama as president to Jesus’ agony in the garden. “On November 4, 2008, America suffered a cultural earthquake.”

Cardinal Stafford said Catholics must deal with the “hot, angry tears of betrayal” by beginning a new sentiment where one is “with Jesus, sick because of love.”

***

Stafford also spoke about the decline of a respect for human life and the need for Catholics to return to the original values of marriage and human dignity.

“If 1968 was the year of America’s ‘suicide attempt,’ 2008 is the year of America’s exhaustion,” said Stafford, an American Cardinal and Major Penitentiary of the Apostolic Penitentiary for the Tribunal of the Holy See. “In the intervening 40 years since Humanae Vitae, the United States has been thrown upon ruins.”

This destruction and America’s decline is largely in part due to the Supreme Court’s decisions in the life-issue cases of 1973, specifically Roe v. Wade. Stafford asserted these cases undermined respect for human life in the United States.

“Its scrupulous meanness has had catastrophic effects upon the unity and integrity of the American republic,” said Stafford.

Humanae Vitae (“On Human Life”) reaffirms traditional Catholic teachings regarding abortion, contraception and other human life issues. Pope Benedict XVI said in May it is “so controversial, yet so crucial for humanity’s future…What was true yesterday is true also today.”

For all of the above article (in green) hit this hyperlink.

The good Cardinal sounds much like this great dissident (hit this link for the transfer to our series on a great Russian dissident) Here is another installment from that series. Click on great dissidents at the right and scroll down to read all fourteen installments on Alexander Solzhenitsyn — a truly prophetic voice. Like Cardinal Stafford!

Thank you, Jesus!

(Father Maximilian Kolbe, when first arrested).

This firm faith and unbroken courage would be tested more times over the WWII years.  And it passed the test.  

Father Kolbe’s time in jail ended as follows:

In 1941 he was arrested again. The Nazis’ purpose was to liquidate the select ones, the leaders. The end came quickly, in Auschwitz three months later, after terrible beatings and humiliations.

A prisoner had escaped. The commandant announced that 10 men would die. He relished walking along the ranks. “This one. That one.” As they were being marched away to the starvation bunkers, Number 16670 dared to step from the line. “I would like to take that man’s place. He has a wife and children.” “Who are you?” “A priest.” No name, no mention of fame. Silence. The commandant, dumbfounded, perhaps with a fleeting thought of history, kicked Sergeant Francis Gajowniczek out of line and ordered Father Kolbe to go with the nine. In the “block of death” they were ordered to strip naked and the slow starvation began in darkness. But there was no screaming—the prisoners sang. By the eve of the Assumption four were left alive. The jailer came to finish Kolbe off as he sat in a corner praying. He lifted his fleshless arm to receive the bite of the hypodermic needle. It was filled with carbolic acid. They burned his body with all the others. He was beatified in 1971 and canonized in 1982.

Father Kolbe’ great act of love and sacrifice took place on August 14, 1941.Comment:

Father Kolbe’s death was not a sudden, last-minute act of heroism. His whole life had been a preparation. His holiness was a limitless, passionate desire to convert the whole world to God.

Source for the above:  http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/SaintOfDay/default.asp?id=1107

For more on Father Kolbe, whose Feast Day (anniversary of martyrdom) is August 14, click here and click here.

To read him in his own words click here.