Pope Forces Bishop John Ricard of Pensacola-Tallahassee to Resign

My latest at RenewAmerica.com:

Pope Benedict XVI’s reform of the Catholic Church entered a new phase Tuesday as the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Office of Media Relations prematurely announced the Pope’s acceptance of the resignation of The Most Rev. John Ricard from the bishopric of Pensaolca-Tallahassee.
This author is in possession of an email by the Diocese’s chancellor, Msgr Michael Reed, alerting several priests of the prematurity of the announcement, and claiming that the Pope has not in fact officially received the resignation.

However, trusted sources very close to the chancery have informed this author that Bishop Ricard’s letter of resignationhas been accepted, that it in fact wascompelled by the Pope, and that its acceptance will be announced within a few or several days. The Tallahassee Democrat is reporting on the resignation, but has deleted from its blog a notice that Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami has been appointed administrator of the Pensacola-Tallahassee Diocese until a permanent replacement is named by the Pope. This wasn’t supposed to be announced either, but this author is in a position to confirm the veracity of the initial reportage. Wenski’s appointment reflects a vote of no-confidence on the part of the Holy See for the Diocese’s curial establishment. Under normal circumstances, a diocese’s vicar-general or some other high-ranking diocesan cleric, and not its metropolitan archbishop, would be expected to assume the role of administrator in an interregnum.

According to the same trusted sources, Bishop Ricard will probably resign under the pretext of ill-health. Ricard suffered a stroke in December 2009, and although he has been recuperating he is reported to be “not fully himself,” and to have relinquished all substantive governance of the Diocese to curial bureaucrats. However, these same sources insist that Ricard (who at 69 years of age is a good five to six years away from the mandatory and typical retirement age) did not wish to resign, and desired to hold the reins of ecclesiastical power for as long as he could; Pope Benedict had demandedhis resignation in response to several disturbing matters relating to episcopal maladministration that have come to the Vatican’s attention.

The way the Catholic liturgy is celebrated in the Diocese reportedly leaves much to be desired, with nearly all of the clergy (Ricard included) strongly opposed to any and all manifestations of traditional liturgical expression, and overtly hostile to the Catholic liturgical “reform of the reform” promoted by the current Pope, including the revival of the traditional Latin (i.e., “Tridentine”) Mass and the reform of the normative Mass (the so-called “Novus Ordo”) in a way that brings it closer, in appearance and in ambiance, to the way Catholics have historically worshipped. (Liturgical abuse and banality are the norm: in one widely-publicized incident, a pastor in Dentin interrupted the Mass to promote his favorite brand of dog shampoo, while during the liturgy he left his pet canine free to roam the nave, and presumably the sanctuary.)

The Diocese (unlike others in Florida) is not particularly distinguished for theological heterodoxy; it’s last two vocations directors are unimpeachably orthodox, but many of the older priests who do not openly dissent from official Church teaching are said to resent the dynamic orthodoxy of the seminarian recruits and ordinands that have made Pensacola-Tallahassee a veritable model for other dioceses when it comes to recruiting priestly vocations. These seminarians and ordinands, however, have reportedly been discouraged by both Bishop Ricard and curial officials from subscribing to a liturgical conservatism that aligns with that of the present Pope.

Una Voce Tallahassee, a lay association of Catholic faithful, has been writing the Diocese and the Holy See for nearly two years, petitioning for the establishment of a weekly Latin Mass in the Diocese’s Eastern Deanery. Bishop Ricard and curial officials have repeatedly refused to establish one, despite the fact that they are required to do so under Church laws promulgated by Pope Benedict in 2007. Una Voce Tallahassee officially represents about 100 signatories of a petition to both Bishop Ricard and the Holy See, and has been in regular contact with both the Vatican and other high-ranking clergy close to the Pope, delivering regular documented correspondence of Bishop Ricard’s clear dissent from Church law in this regard. [1] Una Voce chapter co-founder and president Stephen Mozier, a cradle Catholic who several years ago reverted to the Church from Anglicanism and is a former candidate for the Diocese’s deacon formation program, could not say whether this correspondence has informed the Holy See’s displeasure with Bishop Ricard, but he is sure it could not have worked in the bishop’s favor. Mr Mozier was dismissed from the deacon program after his formators voiced concerns over his having spear-headed the celebration of five Latin Masses (all with very reluctant approval from Bishop Ricard, despite an average congregational attendance of 210 faithful) and over his academic interests in Anglican-Catholic ecumenism. He and others in the diocese hope the new bishop will be more obedient to the teaching and discipline of the Church, and that so-called “traditionalists” will no longer have to stay in the liturgical “closet” for fear of being blacklisted as troublemaking reactionaries.

By all accounts, Bishop Ricard is in fact a pious man who sincerely believes and professes the Catholic Christian religion, but he also has a reputation for being a “do-nothing bishop.” According to published statistics, the Pensacola-Tallahassee Diocese has seen no growth in the relative number of Catholics since Ricard began his episcopacy in 1997. It is hoped that his successor will better cultivate evangelization, beginning with those pockets of dynamic orthodoxy that already exist in some places, e.g., St Stephen’s church in Pensacola (the only parish in the Diocese on board with the papal liturgical reform of the reform) and the youth ministry by the Brotherhood of Hope at Tallahassee’s Co-Cathedral of St Thomas More. (Unfortunately, the “charismatic” Brotherhood is also implacably opposed to traditional Catholic worship, the Pope Benedictine liturgical reform, and the establishment of a “Latin Mass ministry” at the Co-Cathedral.)

Bishop John Ricard is the second Florida bishop in less than a year to be forced into early retirement by Pope Benedict XVI. The state iswidely known to be a hot-bed for clerical homosexualism, theological dissent, and liturgical abuse, but the tide has turned in recent years thanks to some key appointments by Pope Benedict. Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami, Bishop Frank Joseph Dewane of Venice, and Bishop John Gerard Noonan of Orlando are all Benedict appointees; each is a staunch defender of Catholic orthodoxy and clerical reform and are joined in these regards by Wenski’s auxiliary, Bishop Felipe de Jesús Estévez. It is not known who will succeed Ricard, but it is believed his successor will be cut from the same mold; at which point, four out of Florida’s seven dioceses will be governed by staunch conservatives, and these conservatives will dominate the Florida Catholic Conference of Bishops by a ratio of 5 to 3.

Recent events in Florida demonstrate not only the present Pope’s active commitment to Catholic reform, but the willingness of the Holy See to act on the careful instigation of the lay faithful who petition her for redress of their grievances. Let us hope that the state’s ecclesiastical renewal, combined with the conservative political reforms ushered in by the voters in the last election, will bear fruit in mutual springtimes for both church and civil society in the Sunshine State.

NOTES:

[1] By way of disclosure, the author wishes to note that he has been a signatory to several of these letters on behalf of the Una Voce chapter. He also serves as Vice-President of the chapter, which he co-founded.

2010 in Review

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

A helper monkey made this abstract painting, inspired by your stats.

The average container ship can carry about 4,500 containers. This blog was viewed about 20,000 times in 2010. If each view were a shipping container, your blog would have filled about 4 fully loaded ships.

In 2010, there were 15 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 57 posts. There was 1 picture uploaded, taking a total of 25kb.

The busiest day of the year was November 1st with 823 views. The most popular post that day was Non-Partisan Conservative Endorsements for 2010 Broward County (FL) General Election.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were renewamerica.com, blogs.telegraph.co.uk, facebook.com, digg.com, and search.aol.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for eric giunta, archbishop favalora, father anibal morales, broward county court judge group 1, and ann yarko.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

Non-Partisan Conservative Endorsements for 2010 Broward County (FL) General Election October 2010
17 comments

2

Non-Partisan Conservative Endorsements for Broward County (FL) Primary August 2010
8 comments

3

UPDATED: Why Favalora Must Resign September 2009
1 comment

4

When Contraception Isn’t a Sin November 2010
48 comments and 1 Like on WordPress.com,

5

Archbishop Favalora of Miami MUST Resign September 2009
7 comments

When Contraception Isn’t a Sin

or, “No, the Pope has not changed Catholic teaching”

[See UPDATE at end of article.]

The ignoramuses at the mainstream media are at it again. Pope Benedict XVI, we are told by the UK Telegraph, will soon “end the Catholic Church’s absolute ban on the use of condoms,” this after “decades of fierce opposition to the use of all contraception.” “Until now,” according to the folks at the AFP, “the Vatican had prohibited the use of any form of contraception — other than abstinence — even as a guard against sexually transmitted disease.”

I call these people ignoramuses not because they are ignorant of Catholic theology, but because their ignorance is willful. Any one of the journalists employed by the aforementioned media outlets could have consulted with any Catholic theologian, and been provided with the information and the documentation I’m about to present to the readers of this column, to wit: Notwithstanding consistent misrepresentation by mainstream media outlets, and even some sectors of the Catholic right, it has never been the position of the Catholic magisterium, nor Catholic theologians generally, that the use of contraception is intrinsically immoral.

No, yours truly is not “coming out” as a leftist dissenter from two millennia of orthodox Christian teaching on the general immorality of contraception. Again contrary to the paradigms presupposed by the secular press, Catholic Christian teaching on artificial birth control is not “the Vatican’s position” on the subject, as if Catholics believed that the Pope of Rome was a privileged recipient of divine revelation, receiving new doctrines and communicating them accordingly. Believing as we do that divine revelation ended with the death of Christ’s Apostles, Catholicism is an inherently conservative religious system. Any new doctrine that contradicts established teaching is heretical ipso facto, no matter how creative a contrary doctrine one can derive from any and all manner of rationalization and Biblical kama sutra. Apart from the obvious natural law arguments, Catholics believe contraception to be immoral because their Jewish predecessors believed God’s Word precluded it, and this was a doctrine presupposed and reaffirmed by every serious Christian (even Protestants) before 1930, when the Anglican Communion kicked-off Christianity’s sexual revolution by its “discovery” that perverting the sexual faculty was Biblical after all. Catholics oppose contraception because they believe it to be contrary to God’s Word (i.e., Scripture in Tradition), not because this is “Vatican policy.”

This having been said, what exactly do I mean when I say contraception is not always and everywhere sinful? Did not Pope Paul VI solemnly teach, in his encyclical Humane Vitae: On the Regulation of Birth, that

[T]he direct interruption of the generative process already begun and, above all, all direct abortion, even for therapeutic reasons, are to be absolutely excluded as lawful means of regulating the number of children. Equally to be condemned, as the magisterium of the Church has affirmed on many occasions, is direct sterilization, whether of the man or of the woman, whether permanent or temporary. Similarly excluded is any action which either before, at the moment of, or after sexual intercourse [coniugale commercium], is specifically intended to prevent procreation—whether as an end or as a means. {Humane Vitae 14}

Of course he did. But any theologian worth his two cents will tell you that the expression commonly translated “sexual intercourse” from the Latin coniugale commercium never refers to a sexual relationship between fornicators, but always and everywhere to relations between married persons. Don’t believe me? Look up the word “conjugal” for yourselves in a dictionary.

This is precisely what every pronouncement by the Catholic magisterium on this subject presupposes, and it is also the rationale behind the Church’s traditional approval for consecrated nuns and sisters to avail themselves of birth control pills in mission territories where persecutory rape is a real danger, and more recent approvals by the Catholic hierarchy for rape victims to avail themselves of “morning after” medications when this can be taken in a manner that is non-abortificient.

In 2004, the UK Tablet, a leftist Catholic publication beloved by Catholic dissidents, proved that even a broken clock is right twice-a-day when it published two articles (one an editorial) challenging continued misrepresentation by some Catholic conservatives of their Church’s teaching. Both are worth a serious read. Contrary to popular belief, the Church does not teach that a rapist compounds his immorality by wearing a condom while he abuses his victim; for the Catholic, rape and fornication are already per se unnatural, because they are immoral exercises of the sexual faculty outside the one institution that is best conducive to the procreation and rearing of children: the natural family built upon the conjugal (i.e., marital) union.

When it comes to combatting AIDS, the Church does not oppose any and all incorporation of condom-promotion into an otherwise comprehensive approach to addressing the epidemic. This is another myth promoted by both the leftist press and certain zealots on the Catholic right overreacting to a culture of sexual license. What the Church opposes are AIDS prevention programs that are condom-centric. The very same conservatives who rightfully highlight the singular success of Uganda in alleviating the AIDS epidemic by the employment of Church-endorsed programs focusing on sexual abstinence and marital fidelity tend to forget, rather conveniently, that these are just the first two, albeit the most emphasized, prongs of a three-tier strategy, called ABC: “abstinence, be faithful, and use condoms.” The use of contraceptives by the infected married and by extra-marital fornicators is not the chief focus of Uganda’s successful program, but it is a factor.

And this leads to another myth that needs shattering: that the Church teaches that AIDS-afflicted married couples have no moral choice but to abstain from conjugal relations indefinitely, or risk passing the fatal disease in the course of unprotected marital lovemaking. Many Catholics are shocked to hear this, but perfectly orthodox moral theologians are heavily divided on this question, and the Church has never pronounced on this contentious issue. There is a perfectly valid argument to be made that an AIDS victim who makes love to his wife while wearing a prophylactic is morally justified in doing so by virtue of the principle of double effect: the morally laudable object of employing the prophylactic is to block the transmission of the AIDS virus between spouses; contraception is an unintended side effect, the gravity of which is met or outweighed by the equally serious good of maintaining an important means of maintaining marital intimacy and relieving the sexual impulse. (The principle of double-effect, it should be remembered, is also the means by which the Church herself even justifies the carrying out of an indirect abortion to save the endangered life of a pregnant mother.)

To be sure, not every theologian subscribes to this moral logic. Some argue that a condom is intrinsically and not incidentally contraceptive, that the unintended contraceptive effect in any case outweighs in gravity the other two ends of marital relations, and that even with condoms the risk (no matter how small) of transmitting the deadly virus to one’s spouse is enough to render the act morally reckless.

A Catholic may fall on whichever side he wishes to in this debate; what he may not do (as far as his Church is concerned) is assert his opinion dogmatically and unlawfully burden the consciences of fellow Catholics who disagree with him. The Pope himself for years has maintained a prudent silence on the question personally, and his personal thoughts on the matter, soon to be published in a book-length interview by Peter Seewald, are perfectly in line with the findings of a 200-page study conducted in 2006 by the Pontifical Council for Health Care Ministry, which “included ‘an enormous rainbow’ of theological and moral positions, from theologians who expressed ‘very rigorous’ opinions against condom use even when used as a disease-preventing measure to those who held a ‘very understanding’ perspective.” According to the official new service of the United States Catholic Bishops,

after looking more closely at the question, the church experts decided it was premature for the Vatican to make a comprehensive statement on the theological and pastoral aspects of condom use, in part because there was not unanimity of opinion, and in part because many believed that discussion of the theological nuances would only invite confusion in the media and among Catholics.

Today these concerns have been vindicated, and the Catholic right and the pro-life movement have much to answer for such confusion. For years, my sometime-editors at a very prominent pro-life news service have castigated bishops and theologians who publicized these nuances, and accused them of being leftist heretics.

What is ironic is that over the last several years, it is the otherwise-dissident Catholic left that has more accurately represented Catholic orthodoxy on these very difficult questions, while the self-styled vanguard of conservative orthodoxy continues to distort the Church’s official teaching, subject her to much unnecessary ridicule, and offended against Christian charity by causing scandal to untold numbers of Catholic couples who find themselves in difficult conjugal situations.

We should continue to urge the mainstream media to get its reporting right in these matters. If they were writing on any religion other than Catholicism, they would surely seek the counsel of religious specialists and peruse appropriate documentation. That they won’t extend the same courtesies toward Catholics and other Christians is both patronizing and bigoted. But before we can expect them to clean up their act, the Catholic right needs to get its theological house in order, repent of its past misrepresentations, and do so publicly. If after the Pope’s own informal articulation of these nuances these misstatements continue to be made, the pro-life and conservative cause will have ceased to retain the orthodox high ground.

UPDATE:

America magazine has published three blog entries that further document the fact that the long-held theological consensus is not what the mainstream press and some of my fellow conservatives has let on. See:

“Pope on Condoms and AIDS: The Background”

“The Pope and Martin Rhonheimer”

“The Pope and Martin Rhonheimer, Part II”

And this article by L’espresso:

“‘Light of the World’: A Papal First”

Rubio Campaign to Religious Voters: “Screw You; Get a Life!”

The reaction across the blogosphere has been mixed regarding recent publicization (by myself and Dr Damian Thompson of the UK Telegraph) of inconvenient truths that appear to be inconsistent with the putative religious affiliation of Senator-elect Marco Rubio of Florida. As I and others have noted, Mr. Rubio certainly self-identified as a Catholic during his campaign, and did so strongly enough to have earned the endorsement (and concomitant financial contributions) of the influential Catholic Advocate PAC.

Yet, we learn that Mr Rubio and his family frequent (and donate thousands of dollars to) a Miami church affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), historically a very anti-Catholic denomination. (Despite some thawing in relations between the Convention and the Catholic Church in recent decades, since 2001 the SBC has discontinued ecumenical dialogue with the Church, and at the local level such ecumenical feelings from SBC votaries is virtually non-existent. In South Florida particularly, this author’s personal experience is that even educated Baptists are under the impression that the Catholic Church is not a Christian institution, and that most Catholics are rank idolaters in need of Protestant salvation. In the region, it is not uncommon for Southern Baptists to distinguish between “Catholics and Christians (i.e., Protestants)” and for some Catholics themselves to adopt that language. Most Southern Baptists will perhaps concede that some Catholics are Christians, but this very much in spite of their Catholic “idolatry”.)

This author has received varied reactions since bringing attention to this matter. Many have lauded his research, others disparaged it. He wishes to call attention to the more frequent objections, starting from the most asinine:

a) “You’re a religious bigot.”

Um . . . no. I have been very public about my support (and my continued support) of Senator-elect Rubio. All I have insisted upon is honesty from those who would be my public servants.It is very well-known that politicians frequently make faux overtures to religious constituencies, the better to exploit them as a voting bloc. Sometimes such displays of religiosity are sincere, other times they are not. As a Catholic Christian humanist, I (and others of various religious professions, and none) have every right to know what ideas and worldview inform the political orientation of those who would represent me in political office, and to weigh those ideas (including religious ones) alongside other factors before casting my support in favor of a candidate. Rubio’s possible newfound Protestantism doesn’t offend me, as much as the prospect of Catholics and Baptists having their intelligences insulted by a politician sending mixed messages to two “religious right” constituencies, the better to garner as many votes from each as possible.

In short: Mr. Rubio doesn’t have to be a Catholic to earn my Catholic vote – I just don’t appreciate being lied to or misled. And neither should Baptists, if indeed it turns out Rubio is attending and patronizing one of their churches in order to court the Evangelical vote.

As for my own ecumenical street creds: I myself regularly assist at Orthodox and Protestant church services. Every Sunday evening, and many weeknights, one will find me seated in the Great Choir of Washington National Cathedral, celebrating choral Evensong. If I were a public figure, and open about my Catholicism, and someone asked me why I frequent these services, I’d have an honest answer: these services are beautiful and prayerful, I have a deep appreciation for Protestantism’s intellectual, theological, and artistic patrimony, and these choral services are the closest thing Washington, DC offers to a Catholic celebration of Vespers. For similar reasons, back in Tallahassee one will find me celebrating Great Vespers on Saturday evenings at Holy Mother of God Greek Orthodox Church, and at choral prayer services at St John’s Episcopal. Were I public servant, there’d be nothing untoward about anyone asking me to explain these things.

7 November 2010: The Rt Revd John Bryson Chane (Episcopal Bishop of Washington) and I, enjoying a brief chat after choral Evensong at Washington National Cathedral

b) “Applying a religious test to candidates is unconstitutional and unAmerican!”

I’m used to political leftists never having actually read the U.S. Constitution, much less cared about what it has to say, but this is an objection often heard even by the originalist right, and it is bogus. The Constitution does not prohibit citizens from applying ideological lithmus tests to candidates for public office when they exercise their right to vote, and any legal instrument that purported to do so would be downright tyrannical. What the Constitution rightly forbids is government applying religious tests, precisely because such tests are best left in the hands of free citizens. When I vote, both as a Catholic Christian and as an American, I have every right to support candidates who I believe would offer whatever moral, religious, and/or ideological example I feel would best redound to the moral and spiritual benefit of the commonwealth. Asking what a candidate holds most sacred, and making a judgment of his fitness for public office after taking that into account, is not tantamount to racism, for a simple reason: race isn’t chosen, religion is. It is a perfectly valid exercise to judge a man’s fitness for public office by weighing the rightness and wrongness (or the intellectual sanity or insanity) of the beliefs he holds. One can come to a wrong conclusion when making those assessments, but that deliberation is not itself bigoted. Today the American people are reaping the consequences of their failure to do just that for candidate Obama.

c) “The right-wing used to castigate the left for ‘political correctness’ tests, now the right is applying something similar, ‘religious correctness’ on politicians.”

See (b); there is no logical relationship between one’s race, gender, and sexual orientation and one’s approach to public morality and foreign policy, whereas religious beliefs (when taken seriously) do have such implications. Whatever secular justifications one can adduce for their policy prescriptions, we’re naive and foolish if we deny the value of religious convictions in reinforcing these. Whether it’s Catholicism vis-a-vis the pro-life movement, Evangelicalism and Judaism vis-a-vis political Zionism, or atheist secularism (and even Evangelical leftism) vis-a-vis the culture-of-death ethic and the welfare state, only the most disingenuous can assert that religious faith (yes, secularism is just as much a faith tradition as Christianity) has nothing whatosever to do with how one approaches these issues. One might as well argue that Christianity was just incidental to abolitionism and the civil rights movement; that would be absurd!

d) “You think you’re some uber-Catholic, taking it upon yourself to determine who’s pure and who’s not!”

Nonsense. Public displays of gross immorality aside, I would never take it upon myself to question or even criticize the fervor of anyone who professes a certain religious faith, not even a Catholic. Judging by his public statements, Senator-elect Rubio himself considers his religious faith to be integral to who he is both as a man and a statesman. When a politician’s public professions of belief (religious or otherwise) are at such variance with what (at least superficially) seems to be his equally public behavior, voters (in this case, religious voters) have a right to ask whether they’ve been lied to, even if that lie (if such it is) wouldn’t have altered their vote in the first place.

This is not to suggest that Mr. Rubio is, in fact a liar. It is merely to say that there is enough in the public record to warrant some questioning. And so before this author published his piece on this subject, he emailed the Rubio campaign to ask for a clarification. None was forthcoming. After publication, I decided to second a second request for clarification to Senator-elect Rubio’s “Director of Faith Based Outreach. This time, I received a most petulant reply, so petulant in fact that I wondered if I had accidentally emailed the campaigns of Messrs Charlie Crist or Kendrick Meek, Rubio’s secular-leftist campaign rivals, or perhaps the Machiavellian Karl Rove . . .

Sadly, this really was J. R. Sanchez of the Rubio campaign. (I reproduce his email at the end of this piece.) While affirming that Mr. Rubio continues to self-identify as a Catholic, he would not explain his apparent affiliation with a Southern Baptist congregation, and couldn’t resist criticizing this author for failing to “concentrate on salient matters”. One wonders why Mr. Rubio would appoint as his Director of Faith-Based Outreach a man who did not consider public religiosity a salient matter for his constituents!

I hesitated to pen this piece, for I know the political left will exploit it, claiming this demonstrates (once again?) that the political right is not truly concerned about the concerns of religiously-conscientious citizens. That we (in this case, Catholics and Evangelicals) are a mere bloc whose allegiances must be manipulated, the better to court our votes; once we are no longer needed (because the campaign is won) we are irrelevant.

I do not fault Mr Rubio himself for this ungrateful response from his campaign. I don’t know the man personally, but I know many who do, and they universally testify to the man’s gracious and moral character, and to his Christian humanism. I assume the Senator-elect is following the misguided counsel of Rovian manipulators, who are advising him that these ambiguities are what is best for him to keep culling both Catholic and Evangelical votes. Mr Rubio (so these advisors probably think) has to tread a thin line: Catholics do not like to hear that one of their political heroes is a defector from their religion, and Evangelicals (especially Southern Baptists) would not be too happy to hear that their hero is an unsaved idol-worshiper (i.e., a Catholic).

The Rubio campaign machine would do well to remember (as Mr Rubio himself doubtless does) that his parents did not flee their homeland merely in search of better economic opportunities. In addition they, like countless other immigrants who arrive on American soil everyday, were fleeing religious persecution. Had they stayed on that island, they might today be numbered among the Catholic victims of Castro’s firing squads, many of whom went to their deaths with three immortal last words escaping their hallowed lips: Viva Cristo Rey! “Long live Christ the King!”

Rogelio "Francisco" Gonzalez-Corzo (1932-1961), Catholic Christian Martyr

Yes, Mr Sanchez, one’s religion is salient to the people of Florida, as it was to Mr Rubio’s recent ancestors, and remains so to many Cuban Americans. What is also salient is the intellectual honesty of his campaign, and its taking seriously the intelligence of Catholic and Evangelical voters. We can be trusted to judge the man fairly and in light of his good work, in addition to his religious convictions. All we ask is that he be honest and forthcoming about them!

Here is Mr Sanchez’s email:

From: J.R. Sanchez <jsanchez@marcorubio.com>

To: Eric Giunta <sanctusericus@yahoo.com>

Sent: Wed, November 10, 2010 12:27:32 PM

Subject: Re: Rubio’s Religion?

Dear Mr.  Giunta,

Thank you for your recent e-mail.  I appreciate [sic] your interest in Senator–elect Rubio’s religion.  However, I do not have any new information to convey to you; Mr. Rubio is still a Roman Catholic.  He was baptized, confirmed and married in the Roman Catholic Church. [emphasis added] If you find that there is a dearth of pertinent material to write about, perhaps you can focus on the many serious issues facing our nation, and the reasons why the citizens of Florida overwhelmingly elected Mr. Rubio as their next United States Senator.  You may wish to highlight Senator-elect Rubio’s consistent and conservative social and fiscal policies such as his pro-life stance, his commitment to reducing the national debt, enacting a balanced budget amendment, lowering the tax burden for Americans and maintaining a strong military presence to defend our nation from the various threats abroad.

I hope that you find this e-mail helpful, and that you focus your future writings on salient matters that face our nation.  Good luck on your final exams, and have a great Christmas.

Marco Rubio: Catholic, or Southern Baptist? Voters Deserve to Know

In the wake of a historic Republican electoral night victory, the international blogosphere is abuzz over the religious affiliation(s) of one the night’s major victors: Florida Senator-Elect Marco Rubio.

Damian Thompson of the UK Telegraph reports (though he isn’t the first to do so) that Rubio and his family attend and contribute to a supposed “non-denominational” church: Christ Fellowship, in Miami.

Let us be clear from the outset: Rubio is by all accounts an honorable statesman, and a true conservative whose policy proposals seem to be informed by a profoundly Catholic Christian humanism. I supported his Senate candidacy, and he certainly deserved the Catholic vote (and others as well).

Still, one’s religious affiliation does matter; voters have a right to know what informs the ideology and worldview of their elected leaders, and to take religious affiliation into account when determining who to give their vote to. There’s also a question of honesty: Mr. Rubio has long represented himself as a practicing Catholic, both at his once-official webpage at the Florida House and personally to a good friend of mine, who met him last year at a campaign stop in Tallahassee. I also know that the Catholic clergy of Tallahassee are under the impression Rubio was, and is, one of their own.

Is Marco Rubio talking out of both sides, the better to court both the Catholic and the Evangelical votes? Or is he just one more victim of the religious indifferentism that marks so much of today’s practical Catholicism, thanks to decades of spiritual malnourishment suffered at the hands of wicked, inept, or lazy prelates? It’s a question worth asking, and here’s hoping Rubio soon answers it.

And speaking of deception, I’ve a bone to pick with this “Christ Fellowship” congregation. Not with their poaching of former or lukewarm Catholics, but with their apparent lack of truth in advertising. They are, in fact, not “non-denominational,” but are affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention.

Why can’t they come out and say this? Scour their website, and you’ll find no indication whatsoever that this church has a denominational affiliation, not unless one is sufficiently familiar with American denominationalism to recognize that Christ Fellowship’s creedal statement mirrors that of the SBC.

Browsing through the official SBC website’s “ChurchSearch,” I’m stunned to find that so many “community churches” which try to pass themselves off as “non-denominational” are in fact staunchly Southern Baptist. Why are these churches trying to hide their religious affiliation? Here’s one theory:

Since the 16th century, Protestants have been troubled, and rightly so, with Christian denominationalism, recognizing as they do how contrary this is to the teachings of Jesus and the orthodox Christianity of the primitive Church. They also know that Christian denominationalism is a scandal to the non-Christian and post-Christian world, and a hamper to evangelization. By claiming the ” non-denominational” mantle, churches can pass themselves off as presenting the “pure, unadulterated” Christianity free from denominational “accretions.” This is, of course, a myth. Even those (very few) churches that truly don’t have a formal denominational affiliation are themselves denominations: independent Protestant denominations, with a congregation of one. They preach a distinctive doctrine, demand submission to a particular locus of pastoral leadership, and worship according to its own set rubrics. Their votaries get to thumb their noses down at “other” so-called Christians who care so much about “denominations”; these (the supposed “non-denominational”) can avoid having their doctrine be the 0bject of easy scrutiny, for their beliefs cannot easily be pinned down: they’re “simply Christian.”

Serious religious persons should not fall for this. If one wants to be truly non-denominational, one should embrace the doctrines of Catholicism. The Catholic Church alone can claim no human founder; it is the only Christian religious system that can claim (and claim credibly) to be institutionally descended from Biblical Judaism. Every other denomination, or independent “non-denomination”, can be traced to a particular founder, at a particular date, at a particular location, and never is this Jesus Christ, AD 29, Jerusalem. The only serious rival claimant is the Orthodox Church.

In this, the post-modern age, religious and “spiritual” persons are looking to “transcend” traditional affiliations, and Christians themselves, disenchanted with denominational in-fighting, are victim to these same tendencies. As I’ve written of earlier, the solution to Protestantism’s modern crisis is not further factionalism, the better to “purify” oneself from supposedly unBiblical excesses: rather, where reversion to Christendom’s Mother Church isn’t a viable option, Protestants need to come together and question some of the assumptions of the 16th and later centuries, especially the absurd doctrine of sola scriptura. Otherwise it is doomed to endless reinvention and post-modernism.

It’s unethical for denominations like the Southern Baptist Convention (and they aren’t the only one) to hide or obscure the denominational affiliation of their local parishes. If these congregations are ashamed to associate themselves with a religion founded in 1845  for the near-sole purpose of justifying the “Biblicalness” of the African-American slave trade, then they ought to disaffiliate themselves completely and align with another existing denomination. They shouldn’t meanwhile adopt a “wolves-in-sheep’s-clothing” approach to missionary activity.

It just isn’t Christian.

UPDATE: Turns out at least one of Christ Fellowship’s satellites, in West Kendall, does identify itself openly as Southern Baptist. My point still stands: one should not have to read the fine print to know what denomination one’s church is affiliated with.

Non-Partisan Conservative Endorsements for 2010 Broward County (FL) General Election

I have been bombarded with queries as to whom I am endorsing for the 2010 General Election and today, the day before the start of early voting in Broward County, I have made my final determinations.

I am a registered independent, but a Christian humanist. When I vote, I do everything I can to oppose the candidacies and referenda which seek to promote the religion of culture-of-death liberalism. With regard to judges, I believe we must only elect originalists, i.e., those who believe it is the duty of a judge to apply the law as it is, not as he personally believes it should be.  An originalist believes that laws retain their original public meaning, until such time they are amended or surpassed by the proper legislative procedures.

This understanding of the law is not “conservative,” it is honest and commonsensical.  Any judge  (or politician) who does not subscribe to an originalist legal philosophy is an ideological extremist, and is ipso facto unworthy to hold public office in a civilized and free country.

With this in mind, here are my endorsements, with a brief note on rationale. Click on each candidate’s name to learn more information (and feel free to print this out; you are allowed to take material in with you to the Voting Booth!):

United States Senator – Marco Rubio – This race really is a no-brainer. Rubio’s Democratic opponent, Kendrick B. Meek, is a welfare statist, culture-of-death leftist; and RINO-turned-”Independent” Charlie Crist is a rank opportunist with no set of governing philosophical principles. Rubi is pro-life, pro-marriage, pro-limited government–in short, a true “liberal traditionalist.”

Representative in Congress (District 23) – Bernard Sansaricq – There’s nothing not to love about Sansaricq. He is the former President of the Senate of Haiti, and a veteran of the crusade for human rights in that nation. This record of opposition to cruel dictatorship is what informs his commitment to the sanctity of all innocent human life, from conception to natural death, and the destructive tendencies of an intrusive welfare state with little accountability to the people it’s supposed to serve.

His Democratic opponent, culture-of-death leftist Alcee L. Hastings, is distinguished for being the first impeached federal judge (convicted for taking bribes) to hold office in the U.S. Congress, where he has pursued an agenda that is explicitly Socialist. No, this is not rightist hyperbole: Alcee Hastings really is a Socialist. He is a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which is the legislative arm of the Democratic Socialists of America; the DSA is the American branch of the Socialist International. District 23 is Florida’s poorest; its residents deserve better.

Governor – Alex Sink/Rod Smith – This is my most painful endorsement of the 2010 election cycle. Yes, Alex Sink is a culture-of-death leftist; why, then, are so many conservatives including yours truly, supporting her candidacy? Because her Republican opponent, Rick Scott, is (by all present indications) a corrupt careerist at worst, and at best an incompetent oaf when it comes to the running of corporations. Scott made his considerable fortune founding and CEOing the nation’s largest hospital chain, Columbia/HCA; his hospital chain not only performed abortions, but it cheated taxpayers to the tunes of hundreds of millions of dollars in Medicare/Medicaid fraud, and was fined nearly two billion dollars by the federal government for it. Scott’s subsequent business ventures have experienced (and are experiencing) similar accusations of fraud. Scott ran a dirty primary campaign against noble career statesman Bill McCollum, riding an anti-incumbency wave to obtain the Republican nomination. I’m a fervent tea-partier, but this race illustrated some of the movement’s dirtier underbelly: a pitchfork-n-torches mentality that shoots before asking questions, and is easily manipulated by empty sloganeering and stereotype. I’ve been active in the Tea Party since its inception, and will continue to be, and there’s nothing wrong with criticizing those one loves.

I and so many other Florida independents (and Republicans!) are supporting Sink because her state policies are and have consistently been fiscally conservative, and she has conducted herself honorably in office (well, as honorably as one can given her quality-of-life, homosexualist ethic). I believe Scott will bring disgrace to his office, and will further harm the conservative movement in Florida by aggravating the ills of an already scandal-ridden state GOP apparatus. Quite frankly, the Republicans need to be taught a lesson: I believe a conservative Cabinet and a conservative Legislature will serve to check-and-balance Sink’s leftist tendencies, and the state GOP will learn its lesson from this race, and choose a more honorable candidate for 2014.

In the meantime, if Scott is elected, and proves himself both honorable and conservative in his governorship, I will happily support and endorse him when he runs for re-election. In the meantime, I refuse to make the same mistake twice: the last time FL conservatives voted for a dubious gubernatorial candidate for no other reason than the (R) in front of his name, we ended up with Charlie Crist. Fool me twice? Heck, no!

Attorney General – Pam Bondi – Again, what’s not to love? A pro-life conservative, she will continue the current AG Bill McCollum’s landmark lawsuit against the unconstitutional Obamacare. Florida literally can’t afford not to elect her.

Chief Financial Officer – Jeff Atwater – I interned for Senate President Atwater last semester. He’s conservative and honorable, and clearly most qualified for this job. A community banker, he successfully led the fight in the state legislature for a petition to the U.S. Congress to call an Amendments Convention that would propose a Balanced Budget Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. This man’s the real deal!

Commissioner of Agriculture – Adam H. Putnam – A staunch conservative, and a farm-boy, clearly the most qualified man for the job.

State Representative (District 101) – Matt Hudson – I’ve also interned for Hudson; again, this man’s the real deal. He tells it like it is, and really goes out of his way to communicate with constituents and contribute to solving their difficulties. He’s a model conservative state legislator.

County Commissioner (District 8 ) – Christopher Max Ziadie – These County Commission races tend to be pretty low-key. Quite frankly, the corrupt (Democratic) Broward County Commission needs some fresh (Republican) blood. So far as I know, Ziadie is your typical conservative, and his Democratic opponent your typical Democrat (i.e., supports the culture of death and the welfare state). This seems like a no-brainer.

Justices of the Supreme Court: Should Be Retained in Office? - Vote YES for Justices Charles T. Canady and Ricky L. Polston. They are the only two originalists on the seven-member Florida Supreme Court. Vote NO for Justices Jorge Labarga and James E. C. Perry. They are leftist ideologues who do not believe in the integrity of the legislative process.

Fourth District Court of Appeal: Should Be Retained in Office? - Vote YES for Judges Dorian K. Damoorgian, Jonathon D. Gerber, Spencer D. Levine, and Melanie G. May. Vote NO for Judges Cory J. Ciklin and Robert M. Gross. These recommendations come from Tea Party Fort Lauderdale, and they are confirmed by contacts I have in a very prominent fellowship of conservative and libertarian lawyers, who are committed to originalism.

County Court Judge, Group 1 – John D. Fry – Fry is a Republican, so probably an originalist; his opponent is a Democrat, so probably leftist ideologue who believes in legislating from the bench.

County Court Judge, Group 26 – F. J. McLawrence – I have nothing to go by here, except that McLawrence is a registered independent, while his opponent is a Democrat.

Broward Soil & Water Conservation District Seat 2 – Cynthia Crawford Thomas – In this most obscure of races, there’s not much to go by. Both she and her opponent are Democrats, so I base my endorsement on this interview she gave to a local blogger. Thomas seems to take this position a lot more seriously than her opponent, and to have really researched for it. She has my support.

Proposed Constitutional Amendments

I concur with all of the recommendations made by the James Madison Institute; you can check them out here.

No. 1 – Repeal of Public Campaign Financing Requirement – YES

No. 2 – Homestead Ad Valorem Tax Credit for Deployed Military Personnel – YES

No. 4 – Referenda Required for Adoption and Amendment of Local Government Comprehensive Land Use Plans – NO

No. 5 – Standards for Legislature to Follow in Legislative Redistricting – NO

No. 6 – Standards for Legislature to Follow in Congressional Redistricting – NO

No. 8 – Revision of the Class Size Requirements for Public Schools – YES

Balancing the Federal Budget: A Nonbinding Referendum Calling for an Amendment to the United States Constitution – YES

County Referenda

No. 1 – The Charter Review Commission and Management and Efficiency Study Committee Shall Meet Every Ten Tears – YES – This would save the County some 3 million dollars over the next 20 years!

No. 2 – County Code of Ethics Prevails over Municipal Ordinances Regulating Conduct of Public Officials and Employees - NO – This just seems superfluous to me, so I defer to the recommendation of Tea Party Fort Lauderdale. I think cities are perfectly capable of setting their own standards for these sorts of things.

No. 3 – Broward County Constitutional Officers Subject to the Broward County Code of Ethics – NO – I don’t see the rationale behind this. County Commissioners really need to do a better job educating their constituents on what they put on the ballot. All I know is, the County admits that this will cost taxpayers “by an amount that cannot be determined.” No, thank you!

No. 4 – Establish Charter Office of Inspector General to Investigate County and Municipal Misconduct and Gross Mismanagement – NO – This too would cost the County money we just don’t have. We already have a means to inspect and punish :misconduct and gross mismanagement”: the vote!

No. 5 – Allow Counties to Show Taxpayers the Portion of Property Taxes Attributable to Constitutional Officers - YES – The more transparency, the better! We have a right to know who and what is taxing us!

Pembroke Pines: Appointment, Qualifications, and Duties of Commission Auditor – NO – This would cost city taxpayers almost $300,000 a year in taxpayer monies. Again, no thank you. I’ll audit my municipal representatives with the vote!

Non-Partisan Conservative Endorsements for Broward County (FL) Primary

I am a registered independent, but that doesn’t mean I have to sit out on Primary Election Day. Today I’m posting my endorsement for The Forgotten Races: judges and school board.

These tend to be very difficult races to vote for, as they are officially nonpartisan, and candidates are usually indistinguishable with regards to their “platforms.” Not only that, but judges especially are loathe to reveal to much about their judicial philosophy, and the kinds of vases they hear and adjudicate tend not to reveal their philosophical biases too blatantly.

But still, these races are important, and we fool ourselves if we believe that judges are in fact neutral arbitrators of law who leave their ideologies at the front door. It’s a fact that most lawyers, law students, law professors and yes, most judges are “living documentarians” who believe laws do not convey an objective content, that laws change independently of the legislative process, when leftist (always leftist, never conservative) judges read and impose their personal moral intuitions into whatever legal instruments are supposed to guide their judgment.

And it is also a fact that lower office is often a stepping-stone to higher. So we who believe in the integrity of the law (i.e., orginalism) and the legislative process need to nip leftist activists in the bud.

Do note that this shouldn’t be a left-right issue, thought it unfortunately is. There is nothing inherently right-wing about legal originalism; in fact, it’s rather centrist. When a judge interprets law according to its original public meaning, his judgments are ideologically neutral. (If, for example, one were to read the Constitution from an originalist standpoint, abortion would be considered a states-issue. Roe v Wade would be overturned; some states like Mississippi would outlaw the procedure outright, while in others like California abortion would be available through the drive-thru with a side of fries.)

County judicial elections tend to be glorified popularity contests, decided by the individual voter on the basis of last name or even gender. What follows are my own personal recommendations. I asked around, researched, and found out whatever I could about the Broward County races. When I’ve had nothing else to go by, I’ve preferred Republicans and Independents to Democrats. Sorry to say, the Democratic Party is the official party of culture-of-death liberalism and judicial activism. We have to assume a Democratic candidate for the judiciary subscribes to this ideological orientation unless he makes clear otherwise.

Click on the candidate’s name to to learn more.

Circuit Judge Group 2: Oliver Parker – Republican

Circuit Judge Group 4: Alan B. Schneider – I looked up Mr. Schneider’s campaign contributions, and found out he’s donated hundreds of dollars to Citizens for a Fair Share, Inc.–which advocates for tort reform! A lawyer for tort reform?! Give him the bench!

Circuit Judge Group 6: Carlos A. Rodriguez – His opponent doesn’t even LIVE in Broward County. She’s a carpetbagger, and Rodriguez is a respected judge, even though he’s a Democrat . . .

Circuit Judge Group 9: Jill Tamkin Rafilovich – Her opponent, the incumbent (Lebow, a Democrat), threw out a first-degree murder trial on a TECHNICALITY: the prosecutor left the evidence in another state office, he requested a one-day delay for start of trial so he could have it when litigating, Judge Lebow said “nope,” the prosecutor said he could not in good conscience prosecute without it, and the Judge dismissed the case because she thought the prosecutor was adopting a “sarcastic” tone of voice! Ravilovich is a Democrat, but hopefully more commonsensical!

Circuit Judge Group 15: Matthew Isaac Destry – Republican

Circuit Judge Group 22: Bob Nichols -  A Republican; his opponent (a Hispanic) is playing the race card, claiming that one ought never to ever run against a minority incumbent! This kind of racism has no place on the bench.

Circuit Judge Group 23: Barbara Anne McCarthy – She is independent, her opponent Democrat.

Circuit Judge Group 24: Jack Luzzo – He is independent, his opponent is Democrat

Circuit Judge Group 47: Laura Renee Seidman – Republican

Circuit Judge Group 51: Lee Jay Seidman – Republican

Circuit Judge Group 53: Eileen M. O’Connor – Republican

County Judge Group 1: John D. Fry – Republican

County Judge Group 3: Peter Barry Skolnik – He’s the incumbent, and a Democrat, but he’s served honorably.

County Judge Group 4: Edward H. Merrigan, Jr. – Republican

County Judge Group 12: Jay Hurley – Republican

County Judge Group 13: Linda R. Pratt – Is the incumbent and a Democrat, but has served honorably.

County Judge Group 14: Mary Rudd Robinson – Republican

County Judge Group 15: Mindy Solomon – She and her opponent are both Democrats, but she seems better qualified for the job.

County Judge Group 20: Steven A. Schaet – Both candidates in this race are Democrats, but Schaet seems to have more experience litigating in this court.

County Judge Group 26: F. J. McLawrence – He is independent; both his opponents are Democrat.

School Board District 2: Kevin Tynan – Republican

School Board District 8: Susan Eleanor Madori – Republican