An interesting article from http://www.ucg.org/ about St. Patrick. This follows this previous post about it. This follows this post about former Muslims in America. This follows this post about the Pope and immigration. For a free magazine subscription or to get the books recommended for free click HERE! or call 1-888-886- 8632.

Who Was "Saint Patrick"? Should a Christian Observe Saint Patrick's Day?

 by United Church of God 3 comments 

Saint Patrick's Day is a well-recognized holiday in the Western world. Celebrated in mid-March with no other Christian holidays around it, Saint Patrick's Day has taken on a very festive atmosphere. While many picture wearing green, three-leaf clovers, leprechauns, green beer and corned beef, do any of those things really have anything to do with Patrick himself?

MillefloreImages/iStock/ThinkStock

Saint Patrick's Day is not a biblical holiday or Holy Day. And, as it is currently celebrated, St. Patrick's Day actually has nothing to do with the historical man Patrick. Many "Christian" holidays are a mixture of truth and error.

Let’s start with what most people think they know. We have been told that Patrick was a Catholic monk who brought the Trinity doctrine to the people of Ireland. And along the way he drove all the snakes from the Emerald Isle. He became so renowned that the Catholic Church made him a “saint.” None of that is true!

Patrick was Scottish!

Patrick’s given name was actually Maewyn Succat (or Sucat). He took the name Patrick most likely because of the area he was from in Scotland. That’s right, Patrick was Scottish, not Irish! Here’s what Patrick said himself of his background: “ I, Patrick…had Calpornius  for my father, a deacon, a son of the late Potitus, the presbyter, who dwelt in the village of Banavan…I was captured. I was almost sixteen years of age…and taken to Ireland in captivity with many thousand men” (William Cathcart, D. D., The Ancient British and Irish Churches , p.127).
Patrick labored for six years as a slave until he managed to escape back to his native Scotland around A.D. 376. He believed he had a calling from God, however, to go back to Ireland to teach God’s Word to the people there. The Catholic Church, while having had an impact in England and later Scotland, did not have a significant foothold in Ireland until the 12th century. They didn’t even acknowledge Patrick for about 200 years after his death.  Patrick was connected to what is known as the Celtic Church. It was very much opposed to what was taught in the Roman Catholic Church.

Patrick did not follow Roman Catholic doctrine

While we have little of Patrick’s history and teaching written by himself, what’s taught about Patrick now didn’t surface until about 500 years after his death. It was the Catholic priest Jocelyn, writing around A.D. 1130 who wrote most extensively about Patrick. He ignored much of what was known then about Patrick and inserted a Catholic background into Patrick’s story. Patrick never wrote about a connection to Rome or popes or that his authority came from there. So if Patrick wasn’t Roman Catholic, what did he teach?
In A.D. 596 Pope Gregory sent a group of monks to England to try and bring the Celtic Church under the authority of Rome. However, the Celts refused to acknowledge Gregory’s authority and rejected the teachings of the Roman Church. In Ireland the monks found that the Celtic Church permitted their priests to marry. They also practiced baptism by full immersion in water. The Celtic Church also rejected the doctrine of (papal) infallibility and veneration, transubstantiation, the confessional, the Mass, relic worship, image adoration and the primacy of Peter ( Truth Triumphant , by B.G. Wilkinson, pg. 108). The latter list is of specific Roman Catholic doctrines that the Celtic Church knew were not taught in the Scriptures.

Patrick observed the Saturday Sabbath, Passover and rejected the Trinity doctrine

Patrick also rejected the merging of church and state (a main teaching of Catholicism). He believed and taught the same as Jesus in John 18:36 that God’s Kingdom is not of this world. The Celtic Church had local ecclesiastical councils and kept Saturday as a day of rest , (A.C. Flick, The Rise of Medieval Church, pp. 236-327). In this matter of a Saturday (Sabbath) rest, Dr. James C. Moffatt wrote that, “They [the Celtic churches] obeyed the fourth commandment [the Sabbath commandment] literally upon the seventh day of the week” ( The Church in Scotland , pg. 140).
Patrick (and the Celtic Church) observed the other “festivals of the Eternal” (Leviticus 23), believed human beings were mortal (that is rejected the teaching of an immortal soul and the doctrine of going to heaven or hell), rejected the Trinity doctrine, followed the food laws of Leviticus 11, refused veneration of “saints” or worship of Mary, and believed that only Jesus Christ is our mediator (Leslie Hardinge, The Celtic Church in Britain  ; B.G. Wilkinson, Truth Triumphant ).
The Celtic Church had a long history before the Catholic Church pushed deeper into England, Scotland and Ireland. Celtic writings speak of individuals coming from Asia Minor who brought with them the doctrines they received from John, Paul, Philip and other apostles of Jesus. A Catholic “father,” Bede, (who lived in the mid 700s A.D.) who wrote about the Celtic Church: “They ignorantly refuse to observe our Easter [Pascha, or Passover] on which Christ was sacrificed, arguing that it should be observed with the Hebrew Passover on the fourteenth of the moon” (Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica ).

Is Saint Patrick’s Day in the Bible?

Saint Patrick’s Day is not a biblical holiday or Holy Day. And, as it is currently celebrated, St. Patrick’s Day actually has nothing to do with the historical man Patrick. Many “Christian” holidays are a mixture of truth and error. Because of this, most people don’t really know the history or purpose of the day. We encourage you to read what God said in the Bible to know which Holy Days He made and who He said are saints. The United Church of God traces its origins to the Church that Jesus founded in the early first century. We follow the same teachings, doctrines and practices established then, and believe our commission is to proclaim the gospel of the coming Kingdom of God to all the world as a witness and teach all nations to observe what Christ commanded.
It appears that Patrick believed these same teachings. We encourage you to read the online Bible study aids, Fundamental Beliefs of the United Church of God and The Church Jesus Built  to learn more about what individuals like Patrick taught and what we teach from Scripture. From our best historical understanding, the Patrick you didn’t know lived a life according to the Bible, rather than human traditions. You can too.

God's Holy Days or Man's Holidays? St. Patrick's Day

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  United Church of God

  Mission Statement:  The mission of the Church of God is to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God in all the world, make disciples in all nations and care for those disciples.

An interesting article from http://www.ucg.org/ about St. Patrick. This follows this post about the Celts. This follows this post about the Pope and immigration. For a free magazine subscription or to get the books recommended for free click HERE! or call 1-888-886- 8632.

St. Patrick & St. Patrick's Day

 by Milan Bizic 1 comment Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

Who was this Patrick guy, anyway? Known as the patron saint of Ireland, he's an almost mythological figure in the Christian world, with tall tales of his legendary exploits known far and wide.

Theologian and historian James Moffatt said, “So much legend and fiction has been written about him that one is almost led to believe that there were two individuals—the real Patrick and the fictitious Patrick” ( The Church in Scotland , 1882, p. 140).
There are few hard facts about Patrick's life, but we can draw some reasonable conclusions from what we do know.
Patrick is credited with establishing the Roman Catholic Church throughout Ireland. But does history match tradition? Moffatt commented, “He should not be placed where certain historians seem determined to assign him … He was in no way connected with the type of Christianity which developed in Italy” (ibid).
As it turns out, Patrick probably wasn't even Catholic! His belief system was evidently quite different than that of continental Europe.
It's probable that Patrick even honored God's seventh day Sabbath! “It seems to have been customary in the Celtic churches of early times, in Ireland as well as Scotland, to keep Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, as a day of rest from labor” (ibid).
Other historical records and Patrick's own writings reveal him to have been closer to biblical instruction than to traditional Christianity. Part of the Bible's teaching includes rejecting the use of pagan practices in the worship of the true God (Deuteronomy 12:29-32).
The real Patrick likely wouldn't even have approved of observing his own namesake holiday! This holiday on March 17 was supposedly to commemorate his death, but that date was in fact the time of the Roman Bacchanalia—celebrating the god of wine and partying. It seems the pagan party goes on in another guise. Bear that in mind when March 17 comes around. Forget the leprechauns, and put God first!
Read the related article “Do You Feel Lucky Today? “

Man's Holidays

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  Milan Bizic

  Publications Proofreader & Copy Editor, United Church of God

  Milan Nick Bizic was born in Wheeling, West Virginia. He was raised in a small community in Eastern Ohio, about an hour from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He is a graduate of Ambassador Bible Center, where he attended during the class of 2006. He also has a degree in computer science from Belmont College, and a degree in communication from Ohio University’s Scripps College of Communication and Journalism.

An interesting article from http://www.ucg.org/ about the Celts. This follows this post about modern games.This follows this post about the Pope and immigration. For a free magazine subscription or to get the books recommended for free click HERE! or call 1-888-886- 8632.

 

 

The Label Celt and Celtic Society

 by United Church of God Estimated reading time: 1 minute

In spite of the Celts' characteristic secrecy, enough history was recorded for us to come to the conclusion that the Celts and Scythians came from a common Israelite heritage.

Scholars find a logical explanation for how the word Celt, in reference to the western branch of the steppe people, originated. Some conclude that the ethnic label Celt is another form of the Goidelic Irish word ceilt, which means “concealment” or “hidden.” The Scottish word kilt is of a similar derivation.
This fits the Celts’ strongly held religious prohibition against setting in writing their folk traditions, knowledge and understanding. The traditions were to be communicated only orally, and we can be sure the purpose of the prohibition was not to cover illiteracy. Many Celts spoke and wrote Greek and used it in private and public business. But they staunchly refused to divulge to outsiders any information about their most revered beliefs and traditions.
Even Julius Caesar, during his invasion of Gaul, could only marvel at this strong Celtic religious prohibition. Some scholars conclude the word keltoi, or Celt, is an appropriate label for people who kept much about their past and traditions hidden.
In spite of the Celts’ characteristic secrecy, enough history was recorded for us to come to the conclusion that the Celts and Scythians came from a common Israelite heritage. Their migrations had taken them in different directions.
In the end, however, these descendants would find themselves together again in Europe.

‹ Linguistic Links: What's in a Name? up Prophecies of Israel's Resettlement in Northwestern Europe ›

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An interesting article from http://www.ucg.org/ about Spring Break. This follows this post about the Madrid bombings anniversary.For a free magazine subscription or to get the books recommended for free click HERE! or call 1-888-886- 8632.
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Spanish and More

article by Emily Quant

I thought I knew exactly what I was doing, but my trip to Spain yielded some unexpected results.

It was my junior year at Baylor University, and I thought I had my college career comfortably under control. I had completed most of my requirements with the exception of one Spanish class. Three years had elapsed since I had read, studied or spoken Spanish; and with this small fact I knew that I was going to struggle.
It was tougher than I thought. After one week, I was hopelessly behind and dropped the class. Considering my alternatives, I had the brilliant idea that studying abroad in Madrid would be the perfect way to learn the language and fulfill my college requirement. Little did I know that I was about to learn more than just Spanish.
With my suitcase in one hand and a metro map in the other, I began to roll my belongings through the streets of Madrid. After 12 hours of travel, having flown from Dallas, Texas, I was more than ready for a shower and settling into my new apartment.
As I walked up Calle Manuel and found the apartment that would be my new home, I was greeted by an older woman with dark eyes. Her name was Carmen, and being a native Spaniard she greeted me with a double kiss and rapidly asked questions in Spanish. At that moment I began to think back to my Spanish classes in high school, wishing I had paid more attention! Not knowing much English, she welcomed me in with hand gestures and pointed down a long hallway to where I would be staying for the semester.
This seemed less frightening when I saw that my three other roommates were American students who had the same stunned and overwhelmed look on their faces. We talked about our flights, our expectations and our initial impressions of Spain. We shared the reasons we decided to study abroad for a semester, and they were shocked to find that I was not majoring in the language. To be completely and humbly honest, I did not hold a candle to these girls who seemed to be comfortable holding a conversation in Spanish. My first challenge soon arrived.

Calamari for dinner

Our first night, Carmen made us fried calamari (squid), and in my fractured Spanish, I politely explained that I could not eat the meal she'd prepared. Then, with Spanish-English dictionary in hand, I made a list of the other meats that I couldn't eat. What a way to make a first impression—rejecting her first meal! I was sure Carmen must have thought I was rude, and she soon learned that I was different in more respects than just my diet.
Every Friday night Carmen noticed how I never went out partying with my other roommates. She also inquired about the "movies" I watched on Saturdays. They were not the typical forms of entertainment the other students watched!
I explained that my church had sermons online that I could watch or listen to regardless of my location or country. Spain, a country rich in religious history and predominately Catholic, did not have many who shared in my beliefs. It was difficult to keep the Sabbath alone, and I knew that this feeling of loneliness would grow with time. I had never considered how much my church was actually a family. Being away from my family brought on a feeling of homesickness.

Road trip!

It was finally time for spring break, and although many of my school friends had planned trips outside Spain, I wanted to stay and fully experience the culture. For centuries, this area has been famous for richly unique qualities of food, dancing and landscape.
A year before, I had traveled through Europe and started a friendship with Claire and Jako Kasper, a couple who attend the United Church of God in Germany. After I told them that I was moving to Spain, we quickly planned a road trip together through the Iberian Peninsula (on which Spain and Portugal are located).
It had been months since I had spent time with other young adults who shared my beliefs, so I was really looking forward to our time together. The first weekend of our camping/road trip excursion, we had a nice Friday night meal, shared in deep conversation and enjoyed listening to a sermon from a small MP3 player on the Sabbath.
I had started to forget the importance of being with people who believe, think and feel the same way I do. They invited me to spend the Passover and week-long Feast of Unleavened Bread with them in Germany, and I knew that it would be an amazing opportunity to enjoy time with fellow Church members.
So the spring festival period came, and I remember stepping off the high-speed German train with a hiking backpack, wondering how long it had been since I had sung hymns. Now was my opportunity to wear Sabbath clothes, sing hymns with fellow believers, give an offering and not worry about explaining my beliefs to people in Spanish! Claire and Jako greeted me with hugs and chocolate. We rode to the Passover service together, and when we arrived at the building I was overwhelmed with an unusual feeling.
In scanning the room it seemed that people were from rather diverse cultural backgrounds. Everything was different, including the personalities, senses of humor and, of course, languages. Yet as I sat there listening to the Passover service in German, something occurred to me. Even with these differences, we were all there that night for the same reason. Each of us had been called into this belief, and we were partaking of the Passover as a unified body.

More than Spanish

This is when it dawned on me that I was learning more than Spanish. I had moved to Europe to master a language and to take part in a different culture. However, while in Europe I learned that the important thing was not whether we spoke the same language or had the same opinions about the things of this world, but that we were all fluent in understanding God's truth and purpose for our lives.
In observing the Passover together, we shared the same solemn, repentant and humbled mind-set. I saw that God has the ability to call anyone, no matter where a person lives or how he or she was raised. And He has called a very diverse group of people. In fact, it is through our diversities that we can see the importance of His plan. If we were all alike, how would we be able to challenge one another and grow?
In the week that followed, I was delighted to spend time with a smorgasbord of people with similar beliefs. The evening after Passover, the group of us keeping the Night to Be Much Observed (which begins the Feast of Unleavened Bread), consisted of people from Holland, Belgium, New Zealand and England, and yours truly from Texas. As we sat around the table discussing how we keep the Sabbath and handle day-to-day Christian living, I also considered the fact that many European Church members are used to living in an environment where they can rarely spend time with other believers.
(Those unfamiliar with observing the weekly Sabbath, the annual Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread may wish to request our free booklets Sunset to Sunset: God's Sabbath Rest and God's Holy Day Plan: The Promise of Hope for All Mankind .)
God's people in parts of Europe are so spread out, and yet they have not given in to the ways of the world. They have continued to stand firm and practice their beliefs, even if they are alone in their country. Here I had been, practically spoiled in attending with a few hundred Church members each weekend in Texas. It took my own lonely solitude in Spain to realize the importance of staying committed to what I believe, no matter how alone I might feel.
This lesson was a surprise. I had put such an emphasis on learning a human language that I had temporarily overlooked the more powerful lesson of God—that He is calling people from all backgrounds. I went to Spain to learn Spanish. I came home with a deeper appreciation of the fact that He is calling people of all nations to His way of life. VT

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Help counter YET ANOTHER pro-amnesty lobbying effort by calling GOP House Members in your state

A very interesting post from www.NumbersUSA.com about an attempt to drastically increase immigration. This follows this post about the Border Patrol being disarmed. This follows this post about the claim of Barack Obama as "Deporter in Chief." REMEMBER, “Amnesty” means ANY non-enforcement of existing immigration laws! This follows this comment and this post about how to Report Illegal Immigrants! For more about what you can do click here and you can read two very interesting books HERE.

You can follow me at blogspot here and at twitter here https://twitter.com/brianleesblog. Please consider following both in case one goes down!

 Help counter pro-amnesty lobbying effort by calling GOP House Members in your state

Friends,
The group, Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform, will be meeting with House GOP Members on Capitol Hill, urging them to pass the Senate-approved Schumer-Rubio-Obama amnesty bill, S.744. The bill would grant legal status and work permits to 11-18 million illegal aliens and double the annual number of legal immigrants.
Congress needs to hear from Americans, like you, who oppose legalization for illegal aliens and support sensible immigration reform.
Please call House GOP Members from your state and tell them that as an American, you oppose amnesty!
During the lead-up to St. Patrick's Day, ILIR will also impress on visiting Irish politicians the importance of speaking out about the undocumented and securing future legal access to the U.S. for the Irish. Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Enda Kenny will spend much of Friday, March 14 at the White House and Capitol Hill for the annual Irish visit to mark St. Patrick's Day.

Call House GOP Members Today!

We've posted a new phone note on your Action Board that lists all the GOP House Members in your state. Call each one and tell them you oppose any legalization for illegal aliens and the doubling of legal immigration. We've provided additional talking points on the phone note.  Call House GOP Members or click https://www.numbersusa.com/phones?ID=15874 Also, if you haven't sent the fax we posted yesterday to your Three Members of Congress, please do so today.  Send a fax or click https://www.numbersusa.com/faxes?ID=15863

An interesting article from http://www.ucg.org/  about the holiday called St. Patrick's Day. This follows this post about the problem of alcoholism.  For a free magazine subscription or to get the book shown for free click HERE! or call 1-888-886- 8632. You can follow me at blogspot here and at twitter here https://twitter.com/brianleesblog. Please consider following both in case one goes down!

St. Patrick & St. Patrick's Day

0 comments

article by Milan Bizic

Who was this Patrick guy, anyway? Known as the patron saint of Ireland, he's an almost mythological figure in the Christian world, with tall tales of his legendary exploits known far and wide.

Theologian and historian James Moffatt said, "So much legend and fiction has been written about him that one is almost led to believe that there were two individuals—the real Patrick and the fictitious Patrick" ( The Church in Scotland , 1882, p. 140).
There are few hard facts about Patrick's life, but we can draw some reasonable conclusions from what we do know.
Patrick is credited with establishing the Roman Catholic Church throughout Ireland. But does history match tradition? Moffatt commented, "He should not be placed where certain historians seem determined to assign him … He was in no way connected with the type of Christianity which developed in Italy" (ibid).
As it turns out, Patrick probably wasn't even Catholic! His belief system was evidently quite different than that of continental Europe.
It's probable that Patrick even honored God's seventh day Sabbath! "It seems to have been customary in the Celtic churches of early times, in Ireland as well as Scotland, to keep Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, as a day of rest from labor" (ibid).
Other historical records and Patrick's own writings reveal him to have been closer to biblical instruction than to traditional Christianity. Part of the Bible's teaching includes rejecting the use of pagan practices in the worship of the true God (Deuteronomy:12:29-32 [29] When the LORD thy God shall cut off the nations from before thee, whither thou goest to possess them, and thou succeedest them, and dwellest in their land;
[30] Take heed to thyself that thou be not snared by following them, after that they be destroyed from before thee; and that thou enquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise.
[31] Thou shalt not do so unto the LORD thy God: for every abomination to the LORD, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods.
[32] What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it.).
The real Patrick likely wouldn't even have approved of observing his own namesake holiday! This holiday on March 17 was supposedly to commemorate his death, but that date was in fact the time of the Roman Bacchanalia—celebrating the god of wine and partying. It seems the pagan party goes on in another guise. Bear that in mind when March 17 comes around. Forget the leprechauns, and put God first!
Read the related article "Do You Feel Lucky Today? "

Senators Claim to Have Votes Needed to Grant Additional Work Visas to Irish by St. Paddy’s Day!‏

A very interesting post from www.FairUS.com about the latest attempt to allow MORE immigration. This follows this post about drivers licenses for illegal aliens in California.  This follows this post about the new congressional districts in Texas being redrawn so that the new seats favor the Democratic party in a Republican state. This follows this post about how to Report Illegal Immigrants such as the 30,000 openly illegal immigrants in the border town of El Paso, where President Barack Obama recently bashed immigration enforcement! For more that you can do to get involved click HERE and you can read a very interesting book HERE!

Senators Claim to Have Votes Needed to Grant Additional Work Visas to Irish by St. Paddy's Day!


Call your Senators and tell them the U.S. does not need more guest workers!

Senators Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Scott Brown (R-MA) are lobbying harder than ever this week to pass legislation that would grant an additional 10,500 work visas to Irish nationals BEFORE St. Patrick's Day, this Saturday, March 17! Sources say that at least one of them claims to have the filibuster proof majority necessary to pass such legislation in the Senate.



The legislation could come in the form of either an amended version of S.1983 by Sen. Schumer or S.2005 by Sen. Brown, and would increase guest workers by doubling the number of E-3 visa holders to the U.S. each year. The number of workers brought into the country could grow exponentially once an unlimited number of visas are handed out to the spouses and children (up to the age of 21) of these visa holders!



Not only does this legislation hurt Americans by bringing in more guest workers at a time of high unemployment, but it also represents terrible immigration policy by carving out a special rule for one particular nationality. Moreover, to qualify for this visa, aliens would need to meet only nominal requirements. The legislation that's been introduced only requires visa recipients to have two years of work experience in a particular field, OR to have obtained a high school diploma or its equivalent. Making matters worse, employers are not required to look for U.S. workers first before sponsoring an E-3 visa holder.



CALL your Senators TODAY and tell them:



You oppose S.1983 and S.2005;

The U.S. should NOT add an additional 10,500 guest workers to compete with the already 13 million unemployed Americans seeking jobs; and

Congress should not be in the business of carving out special rules for members of a single nationality. Congress should draft immigration law so that it is uniform in application and is blind to the home country of an alien applicant.

Find your Senators' phone numbers here.

An American Catholic Despairs over his Church's Future

After St. Patrick's day http://brianleesblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/st-pattys-day-ireland-becoming-muslim.html some American Roman Catholics are analyzing the politics of their religion and see a bleak future for them. Read this from http://www.vdare.com/! and see if what he sees is also a danger for the nation!!

“Spiritual Wickedness in High Places”—A Catholic Looks At His Post-American Bishops
By Matthew Richer

St. Patrick’s Day has just been celebrated by millions of Catholics across the country—oblivious to the real intentions of their bishops. If American Catholics do not wake up soon, they may well lose both their Church and their country.
At a Sunday Mass in New York City a few months ago, we were told that our parish would begin hosting “Tolerance Sundays” in order to understand the plight of minorities and immigrants.
I turned to my wife, rolled my eyes, and said, “I can’t do it anymore.” I then got up from the pew, walked out of the church, and haven’t attended Mass since.
It was an unfortunate, though inevitable, breaking point. After all, I haven’t placed a cent in the collection plate in years for fear of inadvertently funding some radical cause—such as the $7.3 million that the Church has given to ACORN over the last ten years, or the bishops’ recent campaign to strip E-Verify from President Obama’s stimulus bill.
My skepticism, however, isn’t new. It comes from having grown up and attended Catholic school in the Archdiocese of Boston, where Catholics have long viewed the Church as an excessively politicized institution.
Indeed, it used to be quite common for the Bishop of Boston to weigh in on local politics, often unwisely. Cardinal Humberto Medeiros earned the eternal enmity of Boston Catholics for vocally supporting forced busing during the 1970s, even though most of the people affected by busing were Catholic.
Still, this politicization did have its occasional advantages, if you knew the right people. When I was a teenager, for example, I remember nervously informing my parents that, unlike my peers, I would not be receiving the Sacrament of Confirmation that spring because I had blown off the required two years of catechetical instruction.
But a few phone calls were made and I was soon confirmed by Cardinal Bernard Law at a parish I had never even visited before.
In the Archdiocese of Boston, it was all about who you knew.
Such a political fix might sound terribly immoral—if you’ve never had to sit through a modern-day catechism class. But you have to understand that for my generation, religious education never included learning about the Mass, or the Sacraments, or the saints.
Instead, we were taught that being Catholic simply meant being sensitive toward those who were not like us—especially blacks, homosexuals, and immigrants.
Did we believe any of it? Not really, since there wasn’t much of substance to believe in. But that’s the thing about propaganda. It’s almost always extremely boring, but when your elders spend years spoon-feeding it to you, you often end up accepting some of it anyway.
Luckily, at a young age, I acquired some unique exposure to Church politics when my entire family began attending the annual Catholic Charities fundraiser held on the lawn of the bishop’s residence, a lavish Italianate mansion across the street from Boston College. It was called the “Garden Party” and for years it was the most exclusive fundraiser in Boston.
Few people, of course, actually attend charity fundraisers out of charitable motives—they go to network and to be seen. This was especially true of the Garden Party, which was attended by the most important business and political leaders in Boston.
Cardinal Law would always give a short speech at the event. It invariably included some trite statement on public policy. For example, at the 1996 party, the Cardinal loftily denounced the Republicans’ attempt to reform welfare.
Yes, Law was an important man, which was why so many important Bostonians wanted to befriend him. But what I learned at the Garden Party is that our Church leaders and our political and corporate leaders are all part of the same clique.
Mark Krikorian has described our political and business elites as being “post-American”. They are people who do not primarily identify themselves as being American, but prefer to see themselves as “citizens of the world”—a world that invariably revolves around them.
In the same way, the American Catholic Church is run by post-American bishops. Like many politicians, they identify little with the regions of the country they are supposed to serve.
This is the part of the story people miss when they try to fathom the bishops’ brutal disregard for the victims of clerical sex abuse—the hush money, the high-priced lawyers, the legal stone-walling, the mountain of lies and mendacious public statements.
Do we not associate such tactics with the typical post-American corporation? Or perhaps a corrupt politician caught in a bribe?
It wasn’t always this way. New York’s Cardinal Francis Spellman was devoted to the vision of the Founding Fathers and taught American Catholics to be the same. Bishop Fulton Sheen was a dedicated patriot who preached that love of God was impossible without love of country.
Unfortunately, such church leaders are now very hard to find.
Today, New York’s bishop, Cardinal Edward Egan, counts former General Electric CEO Jack Welch—a pioneer of outsourcing to India—among his closest friends. An unabashed post-American elitist, Cardinal Egan reportedly raises his hand and snaps his fingers to summon a subaltern to his side during meetings.
In 2002, when it was revealed that Cardinal Law had harbored dozens of sex predator priests in greater Boston, his residence was hounded around the clock by protestors holding signs that read “Honk if you want Law to Resign!” Law apparently lay awake at night listening to the endless blare of passing motorists honking in derision.
During this very dark time, do you want to guess who Cardinal Law’s bigger supporters were?
Yup, Hispanic immigrants, who formed small, but very dedicated, counter-protests at most every anti-Law demonstration.
Cardinal Law had spent years courting Boston’s immigrants, often boasting in Spanish of having been born in Mexico. He even claimed that he was an immigrant too—just like them. In reality, Law grew up in a military family and spent much of his childhood on American military bases overseas before moving stateside to attend Harvard University.
Still, Boston’s Hispanics defended Law as one of their own, despite all of his well-publicized sins. To them, he was “El Cardenal” and all that mattered was that he was on their side.
Now it has long been my hunch that when Bernard Law was being forced out of Boston, the other bishops carefully took notes, especially Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles.
Mahony harbored scores of sex predators in California, virtually from the moment he was made Bishop of Fresno in 1975. The worst of them, Irish-immigrant Fr. Oliver O’Grady, sexually assaulted children as young as nine months old.
So when calls for Cardinal Mahony’s resignation grew louder in 2007, he was well-prepared. Mahony had spent the previous years thoroughly ingratiating himself with his Hispanic constituents, particularly illegal immigrants.
Mahony’s lies about immigration are as transparent as his lies about Oliver O’Grady. But none of that seems to matter to his Hispanic supporters. As long as Mahony takes on their cause, they will excuse him anything.
The difference is that in Boston, Hispanics have very little influence, so their support for Law had no impact. In Los Angeles, however, Hispanics are the emerging majority. Mahoney’s critics have been unable to overcome their strong support for him.
If my hunch is accurate, then the bishops are advocating for Open Borders simply because they desperately need more constituents who will forgive them anything, especially if the sex abuse scandal gets even worse.
This is a terribly short-sighted strategy for the Catholic Church for at least two reasons. First, American Catholics will continue to abandon an increasingly corrupt and Hispanicized Church. Second, as Hispanics begin to flex their growing political muscle, they will have less need of the bishops.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Cardinal Mahony’s influence within the Latino community has gradually weakened simply because there are so many emerging Hispanic leaders with whom they more closely identify.
These Hispanic leaders, like former Assemblyman Fabian Nunez and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, almost always ignore the bishops on anything but immigration. They are typically pro-gay marriage and pro-abortion and their constituents do not seem terribly bothered by the fact.
“Aim at heaven and you get earth thrown in,” wrote C.S. Lewis. “Aim at earth and you get neither.”
Perhaps no bishop has more earthly aims than Cardinal Roger Mahony, whose spiritual bankruptcy is most comically illustrated by the new “Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels” that he commissioned in 1996.
The cathedral is a $200 million New Age monstrosity that inspires revulsion rather than reverence. Among its many awful features is a statue of the Virgin Mary that depicts her as a boyish, short-haired feminist with a plunging neckline.
In his Letter to the Ephesians, Saint Paul admonishes us to be wary of “spiritual wickedness in high places”.
Certainly, it is hard to conceive of a greater wickedness than consciously placing innocent children at the mercy of sex predators. American Catholics, however, must wake up to the fact that the bishops’ attempt to globalize their congregations is another form of wickedness—which they must fervently oppose.
Both our Church and our country are at stake.

Matthew Richer (email him) is a public relations specialist who divides his time between New York City and New Hampshire. He is the former American Editor of Right NOW.