Unam Ecclesiam: December 2012

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

What America Needs to do About Gun Violence

"Our hearts are restless, until they rest in you, O Lord."

The cold blooded murders that occurred in Newton, CT last week has finally struck home to Americans. Everybody is talking change. America does need to change. Changing gun laws is just barking up the wrong tree. A band-aid over a severed artery. None of what our politicians have been proposing since the Newton slaughter will plug the sieve of evil manifesting itself in these horrific events. God is our only solution and we can do nothing without him. God defines true love and only God can cultivate a loving regard for our neighbor. Society left to its own design only creates darkness.

Our culture of death is to blame for America's violence. Take abortion for example. Abortion is society's, not God's design. We cannot expect peace as long as we, as a culture, continue to condone the murder of innocents in the mother's womb. America needs a change of heart in how they see their fellow man.

America's youth and young adults have grown up coming to grips with and trying to comprehend, rationalize, psychologically and morally accept the barbaric act and brutal crime of abortion. The atrocity of murdering the innocent and helpless - a repeated practice that modern American society sanctions has its consequences. Our culture has given its benediction to the slaughter of innocence since 1973 with the State sanctioning of murdering children in the mother's womb. As long as this barbaric act remains legal and a part of our society, our American children must grow up having to grapple with this issue in their conscience - and many of them seem to be emerging a psychological mess. Acceptance of abortion results in the shifting from an innocent, charitable outlook towards their fellow man, to a dark, sinister outlook that can justify snuffing out the lives of their neighbor, in or out of the womb for personal motive. By sanctioning abortion as a society, we are creating an entire populace of darkened minds the likes of serial killers.

Humans are not perfect and we repeat past mistakes. To change our country, our children must acknowledge that society is guilty of a brutal crime and a state-sanctioned barbarism unheard of since the 18th and 19th century when American society sanctioned the widespread crime of slavery. One has to undergo a moral and psychological twisting of conscience to accept abortion as a legitimate justifiable crime that can be embraced just as society once embraced the crime of slavery. Like slavery, to rationalize abortion, one has to alter the mind and conscience and their perception of their fellow man in a way that sees their neighbor as soulless animals that can be easily dispensed with "on demand" for any reason and at any time during the human lifespan.

What America needs is to stem the tide of its culture of death. It can't just be removed. It must be replaced with love for and reverence for God and our neighbor. No amount of tearing down nativity scenes is going to bring America that peace it desires. America must follow the lead of the very people who the massacre affected most.

The people of Newton, CT attended church services and prayer vigils immediately after the attack. They didn't turn to government, they turned to God. They turned to God because they know that only God can provide the peace and comfort they cry for. Legalizing marijuana, legalizing gay marriage, perpetuating the state sanctioned crime of abortion, enacting more gun laws, accelerating environmental restrictions, or promoting euthanasia will never bring America the utopia and peace that liberalism promises. On the contrary, these vices are the very cause of school, shopping mall, and movie theatre slaughters by our grown young adults. Utopianism promotes vices as virtues with the delusion that the more vices get promoted, the greater the payoff will be. Except the payoff never arrives, except in the form of an elementary school massacre.

The people of Newton, CT know that God alone can bring them peace and comfort. Their first act wasn't to lobby Washington - it was to lobby heaven; to seek out God. In the same way, the people of America knew after 9/11 that only God must be sought in times of fear and sadness. This was evident in the packed churches with standing room only of newcomers for several weeks after the 9/11 attacks. All mankind knows deep down that only God will suffice. God, not government, brings us comfort, paradise, and peace. As St. Augustine said,

"Our hearts are restless, until they rest in you, O Lord."

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St. Irenaeus (A.D. 180-199) - Against Heresies Book IV, Chap. 26:2 The Treasure Hid in the Scriptures is Christ; the True Exposition of the Scriptures is to be Found in the Church Alone "It is necessary to obey those who are the presbyters in the Church, those who, as we have shown, have succession from the Apostles; those who have received, with the succession of the episcopate, the sure charism of truth according to the good pleasure of the Father. But the rest, who have no part in the primitive succession and assemble wheresoever they will, must be held in suspicion"

St. Irenaeus (A.D. 180-199) - Against Heresies Book III, Chapter 3, 1 A Refutation of the Heretics, From the Fact That, in the Various Churches, a Perpetual Succession of Bishops was Kept Up.: "For if the Apostles had known hidden mysteries which they taught to the elite secretly and apart from the rest, they would have handed them down especially to those very ones to whom they were committing the self-same Churches. For surely they wished all those and their successors to be perfect and without reproach, to whom they handed on their authority"

Unam Ecclesiam

From the Credo - Latin for "I believe" - the Nicene Creed prayed during the Latin Mass.

The Credo

The Nicene Creed—also known as the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed—was composed and refined during the ecumenical Councils of Nicea and Constantinople in the early fourth century; these councils defended the true nature of Jesus against heresies of the time. This Nicene Creed (from the Latin word credo, “I believe”) declares that Jesus was indeed both true God and true man.

All the people join in chanting the Credo in the Gregorian simple tone.

Listen to the Latin: 60 sec. music \| Text not available
CREDO in unum Deum, Patrem omnipotentem, factorem caeli et terrae, visibilium omnium et invisibilium.	I believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.
Et in unum Dominum Iesum Christum, Filium Dei unigenitum. Et ex Patre natum ante omnia saecula. Deum de Deo, lumen de lumine, Deum verum de Deo vero. Genitum, non factum, consubstantialem Patri: per quem omnia facta sunt.	And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages; God from God, light of light, true God of true God; begotten, not made; consubstantial with the Father, by Whom all things were made.
Qui propter nos homines, et propter nostram salutem descendit de caelis. Et incarnatus est de Spiritu Sancto ex Maria Virgine: ET HOMO FACTUS EST. Hic genuflectitur.	Who for us men, and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, *AND WAS MADE MAN. * All genuflect while reciting these words.
Crucifixus etiam pro nobis: sub Pontio Pilato, passus et sepultus est. Et resurrexit tertia die, secundum Scripturas. Et ascendit in caelum: sedet ad dexteram Patris.	He was crucified also for us, suffered under Pontius Pilate, and was buried. And the third day he arose again, according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven. He sitteth at the right hand of the Father:
Et iterum venturus est cum gloria, iudicare vivos et mortuos: cujus regni non erit finis.	and He shall come again with glory, to judge the living and the dead: and His kingdom shall have no end.
Et in Spiritum Sanctum, Dominum et vivificantem: qui ex Patre Filioque procedit.	And in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of life, Who proceedeth from the Father and the Son,
Qui cum Patre et Filio simul adoratur et conglorificatur: qui locutus est per prophetas.	Who, together with the Father and the Son, is adored and glorified: Who spoke by the prophets.
Et unam, sanctam, Catholicam et Apostolicam Ecclesiam.	And one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.
Confiteor unum baptisma in remissionem peccatorum. Et expecto resurrectionem mortuorum. Et vitam venturi saeculi. Amen.	I confess one baptism for the remission of sins. And I expect the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the age to come. Amen.