Justices Genuflect Toward Rome

by Pa Rock
Fallen Catholic

I am old enough to remember how scared and outraged Protestant ministers in the Midwest were when John F. Kennedy, a Catholic, was running for President.  Many tried to instill terror in their congregations with dire warnings that if Kennedy was elected, he would take his orders from the Pope in Rome. 

Well, that didn’t happen.  Kennedy was elected, and the Vatican did not establish a branch office in the West Wing as many feared would happen. 

Now it looks as though the Catholic Church may have gotten lucky with regard to another branch of government.  Six members of the current Supreme Court of the United States are Catholic – and the remaining three are Jewish.  Protestants, once the predominant religious element throughout American government, are no longer represented in the membership of the highest court in the land.

Five of the six Catholic justices were appointed by Republican Presidents, undoubtedly for their staunch conservative values, often the same values held dear by their church.  One such example of these shared values became apparent yesterday when an abortion-related matter came before the Court.

The issue originated in Texas when Governor Hair-do managed to get an abortion-limiting bill passed through a special session of the Texas legislature last summer.  That bill requires that doctors performing abortions have admitting privileges in a nearby hospital.  While that may sound like an appropriate safety measure, local hospitals often have local political pressures that keep them from granting privileges to doctors who provide abortions – and some of the hospitals are owned and operated by churches with strong anti-abortion biases and policies.  The actual result of this piece of “safety” legislation would be to end the procedure in a third of the state’s 36 clinics that provide abortions.  Opponents of the law contend that it would prevent 20,000 women a year from having access to safe abortions.

The law was quickly blocked by a federal judge, and last month his action was provisionally overridden by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.   The Appeals Court will hear formal arguments in the case next January and will make a ruling at that time, but for the time-being they let it stay in effect.     Meanwhile, opponents of the law approached the U.S. Supreme Court with an emergency application asking that it block the law from taking effect.

Five Supremes – all Catholic and all appointed by Republican Presidents – declined to block the odious Texas law.   Significantly, none of the three women on the Court, including one who is a Catholic, were among the majority. 

Men, it would seem, continue to know what is best for women – just ask them.  And the Church in Rome, while it does not appoint justices, is having a profound influence on American politics.  Perhaps those dire warnings of fifty years ago weren’t completely wrong – just premature.

The Few Appropriate Remarks of Mister Lincoln

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

This week marks the anniversaries of two very significant events in American History.   Friday will be the 50^th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, an event from my own lifetime, and today is the 150^th anniversary of President Lincoln’s immortal Gettysburg Address.

Lincoln’s oft quoted speech came at the dedication of the Soldier’s National Cemetery (now known as the Gettysburg National Cemetery) in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.   The new cemetery was located on grounds that had been part of the Battle of Gettysburg just over four months before.  The Battle of Gettysburg had the greatest number of casualties of any battle in the Civil War, and many regard it as the pivotal confrontation of the war.

The primary speaker at the cemetery dedication was Massachusetts statesman and orator, Edward Everett, who spoke for two hours.  After that, the President – who had been invited by the cemetery committee to make “a few appropriate remarks” - took to the podium and spoke for two minutes.   He spoke of honor, devotion, and freedom  in simple phrases that have offered inspiration across the years and across the generations.

Here are those few simple remarks:

The Gettysburg Address

by Abraham Lincoln

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.  We are met on a great battle-field of that war.  We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live.  It is altogether fitting and proper that we should so this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate - we can not consecrate - we can not hallow - this ground.  The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.  The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.  It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.  It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us - that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion - that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain - that this nation, Under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Monday's Poetry: "The Peace of Wild Things"

by Pa Rock
Poetry Appreciator

I can remember sleepless nights when I was at my farm in the pines near Noel, Missouri.  I would walk out to the barn lot and have a midnight visit with the dogs and little goats.  Sometimes an emu or two would drift up to the fence to join in the join in our quiet chatter.   There was no pressure, no rush, no noise - just a group of friends sharing the peace.

Serenity can be difficult to come by in our bustling and complicated world, and sometimes the most disruptive noise is that which comes from within.  Poet Wendell Berry offers a path to inner-peace by taking a detour through nature.  It is a road I have wandered - and will again.


The Peace of Wild Things
by Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief.  I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light.  For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

When despair for the world grows in me

When despair for the world grows in me

When despair for the world grows in me

When despair for the world grows in me

When despair for the world grows in me