October 21, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – As leftist activism and violence increase, Americans must understand that the leftist agenda represents not just a political movement but a worldview contrary to that of the Catholic faith. Wherever the left has dominated, a radical hatred toward the faith and those who belong to it is displayed.
However, until the left is in control, this anti-Catholic hatred is kept in check and hidden. Leftist propaganda couches itself in terms that seek sympathy and not raise alarm. This deception makes it even more dangerous.
The left’s hostility toward religion manifests itself in many ways, whether it be the Antifa militants burning Bibles or the religious left that dresses up its Marxist ideas in religious terms. In an attempt to legitimize their call for violent revolution, for example, so-called liberation theologians propose a Christian version of class struggle.
Today, the leftist movement is radicalizing by proposing an agenda with new communist ideals and goals opposed to traditional Church teaching about God, society, and human nature. The left now incorporates postmodern thought into its twisted body of doctrine. Communism today goes beyond the Soviet state capitalism of old and embraces gender theory and identity politics, so contrary to the Church’s teaching on creation.
This leftist vision threatens American and its love for freedom. The faithful need to be fully aware of the extent of this hatred, to fight effectively against the left’s nefarious agenda.
There are many reasons why the left hates the Catholic faith. The following list of 17 reasons serves as an introduction to understanding the scope of the fight between these two opposing worldviews:
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The left hates the notion of a transcendent and personal God. These attributes are the opposite of its gnostic and egalitarian vision. Since the left hates all superiority, it considers an almighty and loving God “oppressive.” Instead, the left identifies with Satan, the devil, an inferior, created being, a damned angel, and the supposed victim of the Creator’s eternal justice and thus one who is “oppressed,” “disenfranchised,” “discriminated,” and “marginalized to the peripheries.”
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The left hates the Church’s moral law, which is based on natural law — a set of objective societal norms, valid for all times, places and peoples. The left teaches that morality is relative — “If it feels good, do it!” was the hippie rallying cry — and promotes its own set of evolving norms on everything that favors its revolution.
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The left hates the Church’s concept of the family as society’s basic unit, founded on the sacrament of marriage and the transmitter from one generation to another of morality, religion, tradition and property. The left sees the family as an oppressive institution that must be destroyed, mutilated and defamed.
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The left hates the institution of marriage defined as the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others, open to children and responsible for their education. The left hates marriage because it reinforces morality. The left favors “free love” and sexual deviation.
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The left hates the Church teaching that private property is just and necessary for society's good order. It sees property as a source of inequality and tries to undermine and limit it in every way possible. The left’s ideal is to confiscate all private property, making it State- or collective-owned, because “the earth belongs to everyone.”
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The left hates the Church’s hierarchical nature. It hates the Christ-established division between a Teaching Church — the pope, bishops and priests which teaches, governs, and sanctifies the faithful — and the Learning Church, the faithful, which allows itself to be taught, governed, and sanctified by the clergy. Instead of seeing in this division the path to Heaven, the left sees a class of oppressors to be crushed and another of oppressed in need of liberation. Thus, the left likes to promote class struggle inside the Church.
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The left hates the Church’s charity, which seeks to harmonize society, uniting all in the love of God and neighbor. The left, however, wants class struggle and strife. It espouses hatred and violence as the natural means to change society.
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The left hates the Catholic teaching on sin because it affirms the existence of a higher law and a God who deserves to be obeyed. Moreover, it hates the Church teaching that people are responsible for their acts and that these have consequences, which can be eternal damnation and punishment. Thus, the left denies free will and individual responsibility. It ascribes all blame for evil to social structures that must be overthrown.
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The left hates the Church’s love of the poor, which seeks to alleviate the sufferings of the unfortunate instead of inciting them to revolt against those who have more. The left hates the gratitude, which the Church teaches the poor must have toward those who help them. It sees this gratitude as humiliating and oppressive.
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The left hates the concept of the immortal soul that makes each human being uniquely endowed with God-given dignity. The left says the soul is a myth and treats people as mere biological matter to be used and abused in its revolutionary processes. Leftist regimes support abortion, for example.
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The left hates the notion of grace, whereby a person participates in God’s uncreated divine life and becomes capable of supernatural acts. The left’s egalitarian philosophy hates dependency, especially dependency on God and supernatural life.
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The left hates liturgy whereby individuals render official worship and praise to God through the Church with all Her rites, ceremonies, prayers and sacraments. It hates this recognition of God’s infinite superiority, which it considers oppressive. It desires a god on equal terms with humanity and a “democratic” people’s Church without priesthood or liturgy.
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The left hates the Church’s proclamation of the Truth and Her office as its guardian. All is relative and evolving for the left, and therefore, objective and immutable truth does not exist.
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The left hates beauty. Wherever the left dominates, one finds ugliness enshrined in its buildings, art and culture. This is because leftists deny the metaphysical foundations of beauty and embrace stark and utilitarian materialism.
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The left hates the Church teaching on human nature, sanctification and identity. Thus, there is a constant attempt to re-engineer human nature and create the “new socialist man.” Leftists try to deconstruct identity, gender and being. The left embraces fantasies disconnected from reality.
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The left hates the notion of Christian order guided and inspired by Church teaching and God’s higher law. Such an order instills terror in the leftist soul, which rebels against any attempt to order society according to principles and rules suited to human nature. The left hates discipline and effort, even when they lead to happiness. Its society is liberal, anarchical and disordered, oriented by a vision of the universe that sees everything as the chaos of matter in constant motion. Such a perspective leads to despair.
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The left hates reality as embraced by the Church and its Thomist philosophy. The most radical schools of the left see reality as an oppressive structure or social construct. The left subscribes to idealistic philosophies, drugs and “deconstruction” as the means to deny reality and embrace utopianism and nihilism.
The above list is not complete. Given that the leftist worldview encompasses every field of human action where the Church has influence, many more hatreds could be identified. Likewise, not all leftists embrace equally the hatreds listed above. The drift leftward is a process that adapts to individual characteristics. However, all leftists tend in the direction of these hatreds of the Catholic faith.
The radical left now so active in America will take these hatreds to an extreme. They seek to make these hatreds the norms by which their “brave new world” will operate. Their use of violence, riots and vandalism give a glimpse into this world. The symbolic display of guillotines at protests and during residential area terror marches points to anti-Christian, anti-Western hatreds never seen before in America.
The left is not a political movement or a political party. It is a philosophical-religious worldview that expresses itself socially, economically, politically, scientifically, artistically, educationally and culturally. Thus, to be fully efficacious, opposition to the left and its programs must be based on the solid understanding that its worldview is diametrically opposed to that of the Catholic faith.
John Horvat II is a scholar, researcher, educator, international speaker, and author of the book Return to Order, as well as the author of hundreds of published articles. He lives in Spring Grove, Pennsylvania, where he is the vice president of the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property
PETITION UPDATE (3/15/21) -
Reports suggest that the U.S. Catholic Bishops' Conference (USCCB) is preparing a vote on what to do about pro-abortion Joe Biden (and, presumably, other abortion-promoting politicians) who continues to present himself (themselves) for Holy Communion.
Public excommunication would be a suitable response for Biden's obstinate, public and grave sin of scandalously promoting abortion.
Please continue to SIGN and SHARE this important petition.
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PETITION UPDATE (2/4/20)
Since Joe Biden was sworn-in on the 20th of January, he has wasted no time in signing Executive Orders to destroy the protections which former President Trump offered to the unborn and to the innocence and modesty of children of the United States.
In one executive order, Biden rescinded the Mexico City Policy prohibiting the federal government from spending taxpayer monies on abortion and the promotion of abortion.
And, in another executive order, Biden seeks to force girls' athletic programs, restrooms, and locker rooms to accept gender-confused males.
Since the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops was shamefully silent throughout the presidential campaign on the pre-eminent issues of abortion and gender ideology, and what Biden vowed he would do as president, it is cold comfort that their pro-life office is now speaking up about this Administration's wilful disregard for human life and for God's design of human nature (i.e., two biological sexes).
Stated plainly, Joe Biden is as bad as he said he would be, and the bishop, acting in unison (as the USCCB) have an obligation to the Lord (first) and to the faithful (second) to refuse Holy Communion to this grave public sinner.
With all due respect to these bishops, they diminish the Holy Eucharist and their high office, as well as cause grave scandal to the faithful, by dialoguing with a man who is promoting mass murder of the unborn against the constant teaching of the Church.
A man who continues to use the church as a backdrop for statements about how "Catholic/religious" he is, but, at the same time, is now doing everything in his power to protect the murder of the innocent, needs to publicly repent before dialogue can begin.
The bishops should not dialogue with or congratulate someone who has publicly betrayed the Church's teaching and who is leading others astray.
It's an embarrassment and a scandal for the bishops to continue to allow him to receive Holy Communion.
Please SIGN and SHARE this petition today!
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PETITION UPDATE (12/10/20)
Prior to the election on November 3, the U.S. bishops did not address Joe Biden’s anti-Catholic position regarding faith and morals as a unified body.
The USCCB, the organization to which every U.S. bishop belongs and which is staffed and led by bishops, remained disgracefully silent in the run-up to the election.
What were the bishops afraid of, losing their charitable tax status with the IRS, or being deprived of fat checks from the HHS (immigration programs) and USAID (foreign aid programs)?
Or, were they just too cowardly to clearly declare Christ's law to be above man's law and risk the ire of a Joe Biden as president?
Either way, the bishops’ lack of clarity in this regard is a terrible scandal in itself and probably greatly contributed to the possible election of a pro-abortion, anti-Catholic Catholic to the presidency.
Given the fact that exit polling shows Catholics split their vote 50-50 for Trump and Biden, even a slight deviation in the heavily-Catholic swing-states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania could have produced different results.
The bishops could have spoken out against Biden’s pro-abortion stance collectively, but, again, they were overwhelmingly and shamefully silent.
Because of this, they will be at least partly responsible for the policies advanced by a Biden administration, in the event that Biden is sworn into office.
However, the bishops can, even now, mitigate the damage done by their inaction by taking the following steps: 1) Speak with one voice, as the USCCB, and plainly condemn Biden's pro-abortion stance; 2) Publicly advise Biden not to present himself for Holy Communion because of his scandalous position on abortion and homosexual "marriage;" and, 3) Tell Biden to publicly repent of publicly promoting the wilfull murder of the preborn, sins against nature, and diminishing the natural family.
Thankfully, some individual bishops have spoken out forcefully on Biden's scandalous behavior, and his standing in the Church.
On November 9, Archbishop Strickland of Tyler, Texas tweeted: “A dark cloud has descended on this nation when the USCCB and Planned Parenthood speak in unison in support of a Biden-Harris administration that supports the slaughter of innocents by abortion for all 9 months of pregnancy.”
Additionally, Archbishop Samuel Aquila of Denver, Colorado and Archbishop Charles Chaput have both declared publicly that Joe Biden “should not receive Holy Communion."
But, to add insult to injury, Cardinal Wilton Gregory of Washington, D.C. has said that he will give Holy Communion to Biden because “it’s a matter of the responsibility that I have as the archbishop to be engaged and to be in dialogue with him, even in those areas where we obviously have some differences.”
And, Bishop W. Francis Malooly of Wilmington, Delaware and Bishop McElroy of San Diego also congratulated Biden in statements, but they have not indicated whether or not they would administer Holy Communion to him.
With all due respect to these bishops, they diminish the Holy Eucharist and their high office, as well as cause grave scandal to the faithful, by dialoguing with a man who is promoting mass murder of the unborn against the constant teaching of the Church.
A man who uses the church as a backdrop to make sickening political advertisements about how "Catholic/religious" he is, but, at the same time, says that he will do everything in his power to protect the murder of the innocent, needs to publicly repent before dialogue can begin.
The bishops should not dialogue with or congratulate someone who has publicly betrayed the Church's teaching and who is leading others astray.
It's an embarrassment and a scandal for the bishops to continue to allow him to receive Holy Communion.
Please SIGN and SHARE this petition today!
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
https://www.ncronline.org/news/politics/us-catholics-weigh-mixed-reaction-biden-win
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PETITION UPDATE (9/29/20)
Cardinal Raymond Burke has stated that Democratic candidate Joe Biden should not receive Holy Communion because of his support for abortion.
In an interview for Thomas McKenna's Catholic Action for Faith and Family podcast, Cardinal Burke states the following (starting around 5:00):
First of all, I would tell him [Biden] not to approach to receive Holy Communion, out of charity toward him, because that would be a sacrilege and endanger the salvation of his own soul.
But, also, he should not approach to receive Holy Communion because he gives scandal to everyone, because if someone says, 'I'm a devout Catholic," and, at the same time is promoting abortion, it gives the impression to others that it's acceptable for a Catholic to be in favor of abortion.
Of course, it's absolutely not acceptable, and never has been, and never will be.
We give thanks for Cardinal Burke's frankness and clarity. And, we call on every U.S. Catholic bishop to follow Cardinal Burke's lead and call out Joe Biden for his bloody-minded hypocrisy on the issue of abortion.
To reiterate: You cannot be a Catholic and support abortion.
Thank you for continuing to sign this urgent petition.
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PETITION UPDATE (8/17/20)
The Democratic presidential candidate, Joe Biden, keeps claiming to be Catholic but has said he will do everything in his power to support abortion.
And, with his pick of California Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate, Biden has just cemented abortion into the Democrats' 2020 presidential ticket.
Indeed, Harris is vehemently pro-abortion.
During her time as attorney general of California, Harris played a key role in defending Planned Parenthood over its sale of aborted baby parts (which violated multiple federal laws, according to undercover video of abortion industry personnel).
And, last year, Harris unveiled a plan to essentially force pro-life states to seek permission from the federal government before pro-life laws can take effect.
Additionally, Harris has dangerous views on religious liberty and freedom of speech.
Harris displayed anti-Catholic bigotry in the confirmation hearings of Judge Brian Buescher. Harris cited his membership in the “all-male society” the Knights of Columbus and its stances against abortion and same-sex “marriage” as grounds for rejecting Buescher for a federal district court in Nebraska.
And, David Daleiden, head of the pro-life investigative group Center for Medical Progress, wrote that from his firsthand experience, he considers Harris the “greatest threat to First Amendment civil rights our country has ever seen.”
Joe Biden has seriously erred by taking on Kamala Harris as his running mate, further distancing himself from the truths of the Catholic Faith, especially that every life is sacred from conception till natural death.
Please CLICK HERE to read an article which details one U.S. bishop's warning about the Biden-Harris ticket.
And, please continue to SIGN and SHARE this petition.
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Of course, these two things are incompatible: you cannot be Catholic and pro-abortion.
And, a "Catholic" politician's responsibility in this regard is absolute: On pain of serious sin, he or she can never promote abortion because abortion is the wilful murder of innocent preborn human beings, and also because doing so causes grave scandal to the Church and the faithful.
Please SIGN this urgent petition asking the bishops of the United States to refuse to give Holy Communion to Joe Biden until he publicly repents from his scandalous promotion of abortion.
Biden recently promised to “codify Roe v. Wade” as president, adding, "my Justice Department will do everything in its power to stop the rash of state laws that so blatantly violate a woman’s protected, constitutional right to choose."
And, since starting his latest run for the presidency, Biden also flip-flopped against the Hyde Amendment, saying that he would allow federal funds to be spent on abortion - a position he claimed to be against for more than 40 years.
In short, Joe Biden will do everything in his power to enable and defend the wilful murder of innocent preborn human beings.
So, this should not be a hard decision for our U.S. bishops. In fact, in another circumstance, it was already done by an Illinois bishop.
Indeed, Bishop Paprocki, of Springfield, Illinois, invoked Canon 915 of the Code of Canon Law to withdraw Holy Communion from two Illinois state politicians who had worked to enact radical new abortion legislation in 2019.
Canon 915 states: "Those who have been excommunicated or interdicted after the imposition or declaration of the penalty and others obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to Holy Communion."
Of course, no-one, least of all the bishops, wants anyone to be deprived of Holy Communion.
A politician who publicly and obstinately advocates for the murder of innocent preborn babies puts himself out-of-communion with the Church and her teaching.
Pro-abortion politicians should not think that they can advocate for the murder of the unborn and receive the Body of Christ at the same time. This would be to defile the Eucharist while giving scandal to the faithful.
Depriving politicians of Holy Communion is not just meant to prevent scandal; it is also designed to bring a grave public sinner to repentance. In this way, such an action is meant to be for the good of their souls, too.
Thank you for SIGNING this urgent petition which calls on the U.S. Catholic bishops to refuse to admit Joe Biden to Holy Communion until he publicly repents from his scandalous promotion of abortion.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Joe Biden: I support abortion ‘under any circumstance’ - https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/joe-biden-i-support-abortion-under-any-circumstance
Catholic priest denies Joe Biden Holy Communion for pro-abortion stance - https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/catholic-priest-denies-joe-biden-holy-communion-for-pro-abortion-stance
Cardinal McCarrick and the Concealing of Rome’s Position on Denying Communion - https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/cardinal-mccarrick-and-the-concealing-of-romes-position-on-denying-communio
**Photo Credit: Joshua Roberts / Getty Images