The Whimsical President.

The safeguard of human liberty requires a constitutional process grounded on the Rule of Law.  It is a fundamental process engaged against those who would grasp at power by imposing their will by fiat--ignoring the Constitution and its processes as set up by the Founding Fathers.  

This due process protects the rights of all citizens, including the Church, against the whims of government and the tyranny of one or a few.  It is called the rule of law.

The executive order contemplated by the President today, Thursday, November 20, 2014, is far-reaching and it is meant to impact an entire population of illegal immigrants by the sweep of the President's pen.   This executive order is not meant to clarify an existing law or otherwise administer existing law according to the President's executive philosophy.  The breadth and width of this executive order and its impact is staggering: meant to impact as many as five million illegal immigrants.

The President's whim to impose his will to the point of legislating public policy and law of the United States by executive order is constitutionally, politically, and morally wrong. 

Further, his uncompromising attitude, not to give the new majority in the U.S. Senate and House the opportunity to work with him reveals a terrifying arrogance and frightening chasm between what is right and good and what is disordered and wrong.   I am praying for our President and for wisdom.

Novus africanus

I've been thinking about Cardinal Kasper's recent comments about the African bishops at the Synod.

How modern we have become, when we can exclude a continent, no longer for the race of the bishops, but rather for their strong and vibrant Catholic faith in word and practice! So the dominant culture once said that we should marginalize a group of people based on race...

...and now marginalization has a new face; the back of the bus is reserved for those whose faith is that of the ages with all the saints, rather than that of the moment with the culture.

So it seems a good time to embrace the back of the bus, and like those freedom marchers of the 60s, in a statement of solidarity with the new marginalization, declare myself to be novus africanus!

To those who support traditional marriage, today's novus africanus, well, some things don't seem to change.


Only one sin is nowadays severely punished: the attentive observance of the traditions of our Fathers. For that reason the good ones are thrown out of their places and brought to the desert.
- Saint Basil the Great