Dallas, Texas, Nov 8, 2011 / 06:11 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Increasing hostility to religion and growing restrictions on religious expression are “the biggest challenge the pro-life movement faces,” Bishop James D. Conley told a benefit for a Dallas pro-life group.

“If we think it’s been hard over these past four decades, I think the biggest challenges we face lie ahead of us,” the apostolic administrator of the Denver archdiocese said Nov. 5.

“America today is becoming what I would call an atheocracy — a society that is actively hostile to religious faith and religious believers. And I might add — Read the rest of this story »

This post kicks off a series on the briefing now pending before the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in the case of Bryan J. Brown v.  the Indiana Judges and Lawyers Assistance Program (in the persons of JLAP Executive Director Terry Harrell, JLAP Clinical Director Tim Sudrovech, Indianapolis-based psychiatrist Elizabeth Bowman and Fort Wayne-based psychologist Stephen Ross).

This series is presented in the public interest.  Click here for more on that concept as it relates to this pending case. 

Pursuant to the rules of The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals the Appellant (that is, the one who files the appeal) has to file a timely brief of no more than 14,000 words with an appendix that includes the decision on appeal.

This I did, filing in early July.   The timing could not have been better, as that I began my research and writing when my adjunct classes (teaching ethics) at the University of St. Francis ended in May and filed my reply brief the week classes started up again.  (What an irony – teaching ethics while fighting a finding that I lack the same – or something similar – to such a degree that I cannot be an Indiana attorney.)

In my opening Appellant brief I argued (in a nutshell) Read the rest of this story »

Alternative title:  Last one to the gallows is a rotten disciple

From an article in Portland, Oregon’s secular newspaper by editorialist M.D. Harmon (mharmon@mainetoday.com) ….

On Sept. 29 [the Feast of the ArchAngels], the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops, the umbrella policy group of American Catholicism, announced the formation of an “Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty.”

Why might the bishops be concerned about freedoms that are protected both in ordinary law and the Bill of Rights?

They’re worried because they have good reason to think that our current national leadership places other priorities much higher than mere constitutionally protected liberties.

In a statement released by Archbishop Timothy Dolan, Read the rest of this story »

See the previous post in this series for the background on what follows …

The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the Defendants-on-appeal (Terry Harrell and Tim Sudrovech of the Judges and Lawyers Assistance Program,  psychologist Stephen Ross and psychiatrist Elizabeth Bowman)  to file a joint brief. 

In their jointly-prepared brief (filed mid-August) the Defendants argued (in a nutshell) Read the rest of this story »

The one who appeals gets to bat last in the federal appellate system  — most all systems, in fact.  The final brief (called a reply brief)  is optional – I did not have to file one.  Yet Appellants usually do, for the Appellees almost always get something wrong in their brief.  Under the rules the reply brief can be no more than 7,000 words.  For those counting,  that is 21,000 words for the Appellant (who is disagreeing with the district court judge) and only 14,000 for the Appellees – but then the appellees enjoy the distinct advantage of having already prevailed below.  When you add the weight of the federal district court’s opinion in the mix, then the odds are decidedly against the Appellant.

I’ll take the odds where they landed.

The reply brief does not have to conform to the many rules that govern the initial brief and the responsive brief. It is often more relaxed and even conversational in tone.  Especially the ones that I write.  ( I have written many.)

The reply brief in Brown v. Bowman opens with Read the rest of this story »

Aux. Bishop James Conley has known me (Bryan) since 1991.  He is one of my spiritual advisers and has been for 18 years now.  He explains our shared background in this clip which he prepared for our December 8 banquet, before he knew for certain that the federal litigation would be filed.  He prepared a similar — actually even  more glowing — recommendation as to my good moral character and fitness and sent it to the Indiana Board of Law Examiners last June.  Here it is. They ignored it.

Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, warned that the global economy is entering a “dangerous new phase” on Friday, ahead of the G7 summit in Marseilles, France.

One of the factors weighing down markets is the perception that the situation is worse than 2008, and that there are fewer policy options available to governments and central banks.

“The underlying cause is the same – excessive levels of debt,”

Source: 

As good as Rich Mullins does with this song, here it is done even better ….

China is announcing the death of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency — a move that will likely bring the American Empire to its knees.  Vandals and barbarians are going from bad to worse within our own nation as theft and murder most brazen continue to force themselves onto the front pages.  We are involved in no win wars advancing mercantile interests and shadowed powers few comprehend.  Neo-pagan morality and positivist philosophy govern those who rule over us, kicking up threatening storm clouds for those who dare openly hold to the Founder’s vision for this once-great Republic.   And the watchdogs, those who should be barking the loudest as a deadly darkness falls over America — they are mostly silent, worried about what their chosen masters (such as public opinion and mammon) will think if they say something as radical as “we do appear to be reaping what we have sown, brethren.”

And so I ask — just how extreme is too extreme in light of our dire circumstances?

“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!”

Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater’s  aacceptance Speech as the 1964 Republican Presidential candidate.

President Ronald Reagan and Senator Barry Goldwater award General Jimmy Doolittle with a fourth star 26 years after his retirement from the U.S. Air Force. (April, 1985)

According to Wikipedia, “ Variants and derivatives of this that are often quoted include:

Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice.

Tolerance in the face of tyranny is no virtue.

Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.

And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.

Moderation in the protection of liberty is no virtue;

extremism in the defense of freedom is no vice.”

All of the above (in red) seem to answer our question of the day.

So which will it be, my fellow Americans – Underreaction in hindsight or the risk of appearing  a bit too alarmist before the hammer falls on us all?

It is time we all kicked it up a few notches.

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, KulturKampf is

The name given to the political struggle for the rights and self-government of the Catholic Church, carried out chiefly in Prussia and afterwards in Baden, Hesse, and Bavaria. The contest was waged with great vigour from 1871 to 1877; from 1878 to 1891 it gradually calmed down. On one side stood the government, the Liberals, and the majority of the Conservatives; on the other, the bishops, the priests, and the bulk of the Catholic people.

The word is, in essence, culture war and it is well demonstrated in the latest gantlet thrown down by the apparatchiks in the Obama Administration.  (Read Kathleen Sebelius, former Kansas Governor.)

I speak of the recent announcement that the government of the glorious Father/Motherland, the federal power represented by the war eagle, will require its harem of private insurers to extend contraceptive services to all Americans – and thus require all Americans to pay for those same contraceptive services.

The plan is brilliant, and crassly calculated to blitzkrieg the ideological foes of the ruling elite by dividing and conquering their enemies.

The Bishops, you see, must stand up for the ancient teaching handed down from the early Church on contraception.   At least I think they must.

This is tricky ground.

Most Protestants view chemical sterility as their freedom in Christ and the practice of contraception as merely good stewardship over the family.  Indeed, when I was a student at Fort Wayne Bible College it was said that all pastoral and missions majors were told, in their last year of study, that they had a duty to practice contraception so as to not constitute a burden upon their “sending church” by birthing too many children.

Natural law is not taught in such Bible Colleges.  Neither is the theology of the body.  That explains more than some of the ongoing fracturing of the Church.

Not that Catholics are all that good on either of the above, statistically speaking.

It is no secret that many rank and file Catholics contracept rather than obey the teaching of Humana Vitae.

And so see how brilliant this move to mandate contraception is?  It will divide the Protestants from the Catholics and separate rank and file Catholics from their clergy.  The Catholic Bishops are asked to either stand up now and defend the ancient teachings — maybe all alone — or shrink back from the battle in the interest of a false unity that will only lead to more compromises and less Christian living down the road.

With most pro-life groups focusing on surgical abortion (a dying technology) while ignoring contraception (or even teaching it is acceptable), the Bishops cannot count on much solidarity from that zealous quarter.

Sun Tzu (a great Chinese military strategist of ancient times) advised generals to carefully choose their battlefields.   Evangelical Protestants and Catholic Bishops have been making much progress the past twenty years on a unity born of necessity, a unity mandated by the belief that we just might, someday soon, share the same civil disobedience foxhole.  The time of civil disobedience is fast approaching, and the cultural elites see it coming on the horizon.   Thus they have run ahead to claim the ground upon which the first skirmishes will take place.  They have chosen a battle  over the forced funding of contraception – with the hope, on the part of such coalitions as Democrat leadership, Planned Parenthood, RINOs and other assorted enemies of the Church – that upon this unholy ground the Evangelical/Catholic coalition will fracture and the hope that upon this unholy ground most Catholic Bishops will lose the rank and file.

I fear that their nepharious strategy is sound (that is, will prove effective toward the goal), as nepharious strategies usually are.  (Consider the source.)

And so I must ask:  Are America’s Catholic Bishops prepared to pay the price that all pagan governments have demanded of the Church?  (Or rather abandon Humana Vitae, as the “progressives” have urged for the past 43 years.)

More posts on this subject:

http://www.archangelinstitute.org/christian-civil-disobedience-time-to-think-about-it/

http://www.archangelinstitute.org/archbishop-charles-chaput-sees-a-bad-moon-on-the-rise-initial-post/

http://www.archangelinstitute.org/how-do-we-preach-jesus-in-this-post-modern-world-creeds-post-29/

http://www.archangelinstitute.org/gathering-storm-clouds-on-the-horizon/

http://www.archangelinstitute.org/happy-postmodern-mothers-day-the-pill-turns-50/

http://www.archangelinstitute.org/thanks-be-to-god-the-catholic-hierarchy-is-not-silent/

http://www.archangelinstitute.org/pro-life-is-not-enough-post-1-klusendorf-does-colombo/

The font in dark colors in this post was first displayed here in November, 2009 – more than 18 months ago.  In the past day one of the largest states in our Union has ordained same sex marriage and the President of our less-than-perfect Union has won the first round in federal court in a case that questions whether we can be forced to buy the rope used to hang us.  (i.e. taxpayer funded Planned Parenthood).

Our Christian and pro-life leaders are being tested most in this hour.  Will they lead us as emboldened believers in all that is right and true, looking in Faith toward a Commander beyond the here and now (see, i.e., Joshua 5) or will they shrink back to hand wringing, mere talking and fund raising?  (And especially fund raising — mammon has its benefits.)

National Right to Life and its state affiliates have taken the  lead on the pro-life issue.  Will they soon issue a post like this one calling the masses to arise in peaceful, prayerful protest as did the rescue movement of the 1980′s?  Or will they rather ask us all to reach deep into our wallets to ensure that salaries remain uninterrupted through this economic downturn caused by a contraception-induced Demographic Crisis that the mainstream pro-life groups rarely — if ever — discuss? 

Could it be that I am not an Indiana attorney today — or offered a hand of fellowship by mainstream, “respected”  pro-life groups — because I am willing to post questions like those above?  And the Institute is willing to present on the Demographic Crisis — as we did all last summer — and hand out copies of Humana Vitae while so doing?  And promote the Manhattan Declaration (here) and show Demographic Bomb (here) and openly teach the truth about the Pill (here).

Yes, that could be it.  The Church is the answer.  All else is sinking sand — and sinking fast.

Now to the rerun ….

The lengthy story in red that follows was in the Washington Times this morning … and then mysteriously removed.

This (click here, later) scaled down story replaced it.

Here is the one that went down the Orwellian memory hole, with bold highlights:

Religious leaders vow civil disobedience on anti-life issues

More than 150 leaders across a spectrum of conservative
Christianity on Friday released a 4,700-word document vowing
civil disobedience if Read the rest of this story »