Saturday, July 30, 2022

Reaction to the Liturgical Suppression

Several things will obviously result from the present wrongful suppression of the Traditional Latin Mass.

1. The Reform of the Reform will continue stronger than ever making the Novus Ordo much more traditional, in accordance with the express dictates of Vatican II.
2. Privately owned chapels will multiply exponentially, with clandestine Latin Masses and a network for that.
3. The present drastic drop in priestly vocations will become immediately much more accented.

Several tasks for future Popes in light of Traditionis custodes.

1. Establish a personal prelature for all priests who are attached to the Latin Mass, with perpetual rights.
2. Promulgate a vernacular version of the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Missal.
3. Declare in perpetuity the right of all Latin Rite priests to celebrate the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite either in Latin or in the vernacular.
4. Make the pre-1955 Holy Week Ritual the normative Holy Week Rite.
5. Abrogate the Ordinary Form of the Roman Ritual as unfitting for Catholic worship.

How Not to React (Especially for Clerics)


Below is a quote from New Advent on Saint Ignatius' and the Jesuits' role in the Counter-Reformation which indicates the heretics' erroneous reform effort, how not to do it! I think we can take away some practical resolutions in the present circumstance of the unjust suppression of the Traditional Latin Mass.

I publish this in response to the most recent suppression of the Latin Mass in the Arlington Diocese, perhaps the greatest Latin Mass/Reform of the Reform diocese in the world!

"The abuses were serious, no doubt, but from the nature of the case abuses in matters or of matters themselves holy and laudable. Yet so violent did the accusers become that they gradually forgot any good there was connected with the object decried, though the good perhaps in reality far outweighed the evil. Then came attacks upon the persons who maintained or defended the thing impugned, or who failed to make the changes demanded, and they were almost always declared to have virtually or actually betrayed or deserted the Church itself. Finally the reformer, setting himself up as the true standard of orthodoxy, fell to self-exaltation, and at last rebelled and separated from the Church, which he had originally intended to serve."

Rebellion against the Roman Pontiff is the wrong approach. The right way of reform is exemplified by Saint Ignatius, whose calendar feast is tomorrow, July 31, the anniversary of his 1556 entry to heaven.

"The soldier, Ignatius, in the enforced leisure after his wound at Pampeluna (1521) bethought himself of serving Christ as a captain. The idea slowly took possession of him and aroused a lofty spiritual ambition. The imitation and service of Christ were to be most thorough. He would first educate himself as well as his age would allow, become a priest, induce the best of his companions to join him, and then go to the Holy Land and imitate the Saviour's life as literally and exactly as possible. This was a humble but sublime ideal, capable of appealing to and satisfying the most earnest souls, and sure to lead to great efforts. There was no preoccupation here about the reform of abuses, nor indeed any temporal concern whatever, even the most praiseworthy. For twelve years Ignatius, now a middle-aged man, laboured at the education and the sanctification of himself and of the few followers who threw in their lot with him, and the plan would have been completed as it had been conceived, had not war with the Turks kept him and his companions waiting for several months at Venice, unable to proceed to Palestine. Then he turned to Rome, which he reached in November, 1537, and never left again. The services of his small band of companions were soon in great request; they were the "handy men" of the hour, with heads and hearts ready for any work. In a short time they had been heard of and seen everywhere. Though few in number they had carried the Gospel to Abyssinia, India, and China, the ends of the known world. They had faced and fought the most redoubted heretics; they had preached to the poor and tended the sick in the darkest purlieus of the manufacturing cities. They had not indeed as yet the great colleges which afterwards made them famous, nor did people feel their force as a corporate body, but this only made their position as the pioneers, or advance guard of the Church, the more noteworthy. If so few preachers could do so much, their calls on others to join in the struggle roused multitudes to confidence, energy, and fresh efforts."

Thursday, July 28, 2022

Blessed Stanley Rother

Today is the anniversary of the 1981 martyrdom of this Oklahoma diocesan priest turned missionary martyr to Guatemala.


"I've invested too much of my life here to run."

Tuesday, July 12, 2022

Sedes Sapientiae, The Patroness of College Education


Here is the original 13th century seal of the first university in history, The University of Paris.

It very prominently depicts Our Lady, the Most Blessed Virgin Mary crowned and enthroned in the center on high with Our Lord, the Eternal Wisdom, Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the Eternal Incarnate Word, enthroned also in her lap at her side.

SIGILLUM UNIVERSITATIS MAGISTRORUM ET SCOLARIUM PARISIUS

“[The University incorporates] the notion of becoming a professional intellectual, someone trained in a manner regulated by others who were trained in the same fashion.

“A consideration of visual images associated with the University and its nations provides a glimpse into how boundaries were circumscribed and how a flexible and emerging identity is made visually concrete.” In the adoption of its own corporate seal the University manifests its desire and right to act autonomously.

This is an image of the corporate seal of The University of Paris from the oldest extant copy of that seal, which is attached to a document from 1292. The seal is a guarantee that the document belongs to the collective body of the University. “[It] portrays a range of figures enclosed within an architectural framework that is distinctly Parisian in style and evocative of Notre-Dame cathedral. The Virgin and Child are seated in the largest uppermost niche. Flanking them are Saint Catherine [of Alexandria, c. 287- c. 305], one of the major patron saints of scholars, on the right, and a bishop in profile on the left. Below them are six compartments with figures of students and masters lecturing, disputing and reading. In the twelfth century, Peter the Chanter named reading, disputation, and preaching as the three requirements of the master of theology. He describes them as fundamental parts of a building: ‘The practice of Bible study consists in three things: reading [/"lecturing"] (lectione), disputation, preaching...Reading is, as it were, the foundation and basement for what follows, for through it the rest is achieved. Disputation is the wall in the building of study, for nothing is fully understood or faithfully preached, if it is not first chewed by the tooth of disputation. Preaching, which is supported by the former, is the roof, sheltering the faithful from the heat and wind of temptation.’ (Peter the Chanter, Verbum abbreviatum, PL 205, c. 25, trans. In B. Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages, 2nd ed rev. [Oxford, 1952], p. 208)

“...The University of Paris first used a corporate seal from 1221 to 1225...[It was] Pope Innocent IV who, while renewing several scholarly privileges in 1246, gave the masters permission to use their own seal...[Without] a corporate seal, the University would have had to appeal to the Chapter of Notre-Dame to have their documents sealed, not a very desirable practice when trying to get around about the bishop.

“Smaller subgroups within the University, such as its nations, also asserted their own corporate identities in images.”

Charlotte Bauer, “Picturing and Promoting New Identities: The Medieval University at Paris and its ‘Nations’” in Mobs, van Deusen and Koff editors, Brill: Leiden, Netherlands, 2012, 120-122.

Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Newark





(973) 589-2090

Tuesday, July 5, 2022

The Eternal Instinct by Dr. John W. Neumayr, RIP

Dr. John W. Neumayr, one of the founders of Thomas Aquinas College, died yesterday. May Christ grant him the glorious reward of heaven in the company of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary and all the angels and saints. Requiscat in pace!


Dobbs VS Jackson: Excerpts of New Abortion Law


Dobbs VS Jackson, Friday, June 24, 2022, The Most Sacred Heart of Jesus

Roe’s defenders characterize the abortion right as similar to the rights recognized in past decisions involving matters such as intimate sexual relations, contraception, and marriage, but abortion is fundamentally different, as both Roe and Casey acknowledged, because it destroys what those decisions called “fetal life” and what the law now before us describes as an “unborn human being.”13 Stare decisis, the doctrine on which Casey’s controlling opinion was based, does not compel unending adherence to Roe’s abuse of judicial authority...

Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences. And far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue, Roe and Casey have enflamed debate and deepened division. It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives. “The permissibility of abortion, and the limitations, upon it, are to be resolved like most important questions in our democracy: by citizens trying to persuade one another and then voting.” Casey, 505 U. S., at 979 (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part). That is what the Constitution and the rule of law demand...

The law at issue in this case, Mississippi’s Gestational Age Act, see Miss. Code Ann. §41–41–191 (2018), contains this central provision: “Except in a medical emergency or in the case of a severe fetal abnormality, a person shall not intentionally or knowingly perform . . . or induce an abortion of an unborn human being if the probable gestational age of the unborn human being has been determined to be greater than fifteen (15) weeks.” §4(b). (The Act defines “gestational age” to be “the age of an unborn human being as calculated from the first day of the last menstrual period of the pregnant woman.”)...

To support this Act, the legislature made a series of factual findings. It began by noting that, at the time of enactment, only six countries besides the United States “permit[ted] nontherapeutic or elective abortion-on-demand after the twentieth week of gestation.”15 §2(a). (Those other six countries were Canada, China, the Netherlands, North Korea, Singapore, and Vietnam.) The legislature then found that at 5 or 6 weeks’ gestational age an “unborn human being’s heart begins beating”; at 8 weeks the “unborn human being begins to move about in the womb”; at 9 weeks “all basic physiological functions are present”; at 10 weeks “vital organs begin to function,” and “[h]air, fingernails, and toenails . . . begin to form”; at 11 weeks “an unborn human being’s diaphragm is developing,” and he or she may “move about freely in the womb”; and at 12 weeks the “unborn human being” has “taken on ‘the human form’ in all relevant respects.” §2(b)(i) (quoting Gonzales v. Carhart, 550 U. S. 124, 160 (2007)). It found that most abortions after 15 weeks employ “dilation and evacuation procedures which involve the use of surgical instruments to crush and tear the unborn child,” and it concluded that the “intentional commitment of such acts for nontherapeutic or elective reasons is a barbaric practice, dangerous for the maternal patient, and demeaning to the medical profession.” 5-7

...in Glucksberg, which held that the Due Process Clause does not confer a right to assisted suicide, the Court surveyed more than 700 years of “Anglo-American common law tradition,” 521 U. S., at 711, and made clear that a fundamental right must be “objectively, deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition,” id., at 720–721. Historical inquiries of this nature are essential whenever we are asked to recognize a new component of the “liberty” protected by the Due Process Clause because the term “liberty” alone provides little guidance. “Liberty” is a capacious term. As Lincoln once said: “We all declare for Liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing.”20 In a well-known essay, Isaiah Berlin reported that “[h]istorians of ideas” had cataloged more than 200 different senses in which the term had been used. In interpreting what is meant by the Fourteenth Amendment’s reference to “liberty,” we must guard against the natural human tendency to confuse what that Amendment protects with our own ardent views about the liberty that Americans should enjoy. That is why the Court has long been “reluctant” to recognize rights that are not mentioned in the Constitution. 12-13

Instead of seriously pressing the argument that the abortion right itself has deep roots, supporters of Roe and Casey contend that the abortion right is an integral part of a broader entrenched right. Roe termed this a right to privacy, 410 U. S., at 154, and Casey described it as the freedom to make “intimate and personal choices” that are “central to personal dignity and autonomy,” 505 U. S., at 851. Casey elaborated: “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.” Ibid. The Court did not claim that this broadly framed right is absolute, and no such claim would be plausible. While individuals are certainly free to think and to say what they wish about “existence,” “meaning,” the “universe,” and “the mystery of human life,” they are not always free to act in accordance with those thoughts. License to act on the basis of such beliefs may correspond to one of the many understandings of “liberty,” but it is certainly not “ordered liberty.” Ordered liberty sets limits and defines the boundary between competing interests. Roe and Casey each struck a particular balance between the interests of a woman who wants an abortion and the interests of what they termed “potential life.” Roe, 410 U. S., at 150 (emphasis deleted); Casey, 505 U. S., at 852. But the people of the various States may evaluate those interests differently. In some States, voters may believe that the abortion right should be even more extensive than the right that Roe and Casey recognized. Voters in other States may wish to impose tight restrictions based on their belief that abortion destroys an “unborn human being.” Miss. Code Ann. §41–41–191(4)(b). Our Nation’s historical understanding of ordered liberty does not prevent the people’s elected representatives from deciding how abortion should be regulated. 30-31

These attempts to justify abortion through appeals to a broader right to autonomy and to define one’s “concept of existence” prove too much. Casey, 505 U. S., at 851. Those criteria, at a high level of generality, could license fundamental rights to illicit drug use, prostitution, and the like. See Compassion in Dying v. Washington, 85 F. 3d 1440, 1444 (CA9 1996) (O’Scannlain, J., dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc). None of these rights has any claim to being deeply rooted in history. Id., at 1440, 1445. What sharply distinguishes the abortion right from the rights recognized in the cases on which Roe and Casey rely is something that both those decisions acknowledged: Abortion destroys what those decisions call “potential life” and what the law at issue in this case regards as the life of an “unborn human being.” See Roe, 410 U. S., at 159 (abortion is “inherently different”); Casey, 505 U. S., at 852 (abortion is “a unique act”). None of the other decisions cited by Roe and Casey involved the critical moral question posed by abortion. They are therefore inapposite. They do not support the right to obtain an abortion, and by the same token, our conclusion that the Constitution does not confer such a right does not undermine them in any way. 32

The largely limitless reach of the dissenters’ standard is illustrated by the way they apply it here. First, if the “long sweep of history” imposes any restraint on the recognition of unenumerated rights, then Roe was surely wrong, since abortion was never allowed (except to save the life of the mother) in a majority of States for over 100 years before that decision was handed down. Second, it is impossible to defend Roe based on prior precedent because all of the precedents Roe cited, including Griswold and Eisenstadt, were critically different for a reason that we have explained: None of those cases involved the destruction of what Roe called “potential life.” See supra, at 32. So without support in history or relevant precedent, Roe’s reasoning cannot be defended even under the dissent’s proposed test, and the dissent is forced to rely solely on the fact that a constitutional right to abortion was recognized in Roe and later decisions that accepted Roe’s interpretation. Under the doctrine of stare decisis, those precedents are entitled to careful and respectful consideration, and we engage in that analysis below. But as the Court has reiterated time and time again, adherence to precedent is not “‘an inexorable command.’” Kimble v. Marvel Entertainment, LLC, 576 U. S. 446, 455 (2015). There are occasions when past decisions should be overruled, and as we will explain, this is one of them. 37

The most striking feature of the dissent is the absence of any serious discussion of the legitimacy of the States’ interest in protecting fetal life. This is evident in the analogy that the dissent draws between the abortion right and the rights recognized in Griswold (contraception), Eisenstadt (same), Lawrence (sexual conduct with member of the same sex), and Obergefell (same-sex marriage). Perhaps this is designed to stoke unfounded fear that our decision will imperil those other rights, but the dissent’s analogy is objectionable for a more important reason: what it reveals about the dissent’s views on the protection of what Roe called “potential life.” The exercise of the rights at issue in Griswold, Eisenstadt, Lawrence, and Obergefell does not destroy a “potential life,” but an abortion has that effect. So if the rights at issue in those cases are fundamentally the same as the right recognized in Roe and Casey, the implication is clear: The Constitution does not permit the States to regard the destruction of a “potential life” as a matter of any significance. That view is evident throughout the dissent. The dissent has much to say about the effects of pregnancy on women, the burdens of motherhood, and the difficulties faced by poor women. These are important concerns. However, the dissent evinces no similar regard for a State’s interest in protecting prenatal life. The exercise of the rights at issue in Griswold, Eisenstadt, Lawrence, and Obergefell does not destroy a “potential life,” but an abortion has that effect. So if the rights at issue in those cases are fundamentally the same as the right recognized in Roe and Casey, the implication is clear: The Constitution does not permit the States to regard the destruction of a “potential life” as a matter of any significance. That view is evident throughout the dissent. The dissent has much to say about the effects of pregnancy on women, the burdens of motherhood, and the difficulties faced by poor women. These are important concerns. However, the dissent evinces no similar regard for a State’s interest in protecting prenatal life. The dissent repeatedly praises the “balance,” post, at 2, 6, 8, 10, 12, that the viability line strikes between a woman’s liberty interest and the State’s interest in prenatal life. But for reasons we discuss later, see infra, at 50–54, 55–56, and given in the opinion of THE CHIEF JUSTICE, post, at 2–5 (opinion concurring in judgment), the viability line makes no sense. It was not adequately justified in Roe, and the dissent does not even try to defend it today. Nor does it identify any other point in a pregnancy after which a State is permitted to prohibit the destruction of a fetus. Our opinion is not based on any view about if and when prenatal life is entitled to any of the rights enjoyed after birth. The dissent, by contrast, would impose on the people a particular theory about when the rights of personhood begin. According to the dissent, the Constitution requires the States to regard a fetus as lacking even the most basic human right—to live—at least until an arbitrary point in a pregnancy has passed. Nothing in the Constitution or in our Nation’s legal traditions authorizes the Court to adopt that “‘theory of life.’” Post, at 8. 37-39

Roe was on a collision course with the Constitution from the day it was decided, Casey perpetuated its errors, and those errors do not concern some arcane corner of the law of little importance to the American people. Rather, wielding nothing but “raw judicial power,” Roe, 410 U. S., at 222 (White, J., dissenting), the Court usurped the power to address a question of profound moral and social importance that the Constitution unequivocally leaves for the people. Casey described itself as calling both sides of the national controversy to resolve their debate, but in doing so, Casey necessarily declared a winning side. Those on the losing side—those who sought to advance the State’s interest in fetal life—could no longer seek to persuade their elected representatives to adopt policies consistent with their views. The Court short-circuited the democratic process by closing it to the large number of Americans who dissented in any respect from Roe. “Roe fanned into life an issue that has inflamed our national politics in general, and has obscured with its smoke the selection of Justices to this Court in particular, ever since.” Casey, 505 U. S., at 995–996 (opinion of Scalia, J.). Together, Roe and Casey represent an error that cannot be allowed to stand. 44

In Part II, supra, we explained why Roe was incorrectly decided, but that decision was more than just wrong. It stood on exceptionally weak grounds. Roe found that the Constitution implicitly conferred a right to obtain an abortion, but it failed to ground its decision in text, history, or precedent. It relied on an erroneous historical narrative; it devoted great attention to and presumably relied on matters that have no bearing on the meaning of the Constitution; it disregarded the fundamental difference between the precedents on which it relied and the question before the Court; it concocted an elaborate set of rules, with different restrictions for each trimester of pregnancy, but it did not explain how this veritable code could be teased out of anything in the Constitution, the history of abortion laws, prior precedent, or any other cited source; and its most important rule (that States cannot protect fetal life prior to “viability”) was never raised by any party and has never been plausibly explained. Roe’s reasoning quickly drew scathing scholarly criticism, even from supporters of broad access to abortion. The Casey plurality, while reaffirming Roe’s central holding, pointedly refrained from endorsing most of its reasoning. It revised the textual basis for the abortion right, silently abandoned Roe’s erroneous historical narrative, and jettisoned the trimester framework. But it replaced that scheme with an arbitrary “undue burden” test and relied on an exceptional version of stare decisis that, as explained below, this Court had never before applied and has never invoked since.

The weaknesses in Roe’s reasoning are well-known. Without any grounding in the constitutional text, history, or precedent, it imposed on the entire country a detailed set of rules much like those that one might expect to find in a statute or regulation. See 410 U. S., at 163–164. Dividing pregnancy into three trimesters, the Court imposed special rules for each. During the first trimester, the Court announced, “the abortion decision and its effectuation must be left to the medical judgment of the pregnant woman’s attending physician.” Id., at 164. After that point, a State’s interest in regulating abortion for the sake of a woman’s health became compelling, and accordingly, a State could “regulate the abortion procedure in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health.” Ibid. Finally, in “the stage subsequent to viability,” which in 1973 roughly coincided with the beginning of the third trimester, the State’s interest in “the potentiality of human life” became compelling, and therefore a State could “regulate, and even proscribe, abortion except where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother.” Id., at 164–165. This elaborate scheme was the Court’s own brainchild. Neither party advocated the trimester framework; nor did either party or any amicus argue that “viability” should mark the point at which the scope of the abortion right and a State’s regulatory authority should be substantially transformed. See Brief for Appellant and Brief for Appellee in Roe v. Wade, O. T. 1972, No. 70–18; see also C. Forsythe, Abuse of Discretion: The Inside Story of Roe v. Wade 127, 141 (2012). Not only did this scheme resemble the work of a legislature, but the Court made little effort to explain how these rules could be deduced from any of the sources on which constitutional decisions are usually based. . We have already discussed Roe’s treatment of constitutional text, and the opinion failed to show that history, precedent, or any other cited source supported its scheme. Roe featured a lengthy survey of history, but much of its discussion was irrelevant, and the Court made no effort to explain why it was included. 45-47

An even more glaring deficiency was Roe’s failure to justify the critical distinction it drew between pre- and postviability abortions. Here is the Court’s entire explanation: “With respect to the State’s important and legitimate interest in potential life, the ‘compelling’ point is at viability. This is so because the fetus then presumably has the capability of meaningful life outside the womb.” 410 U. S., at 163. As Professor Laurence Tribe has written, “[c]learly, this mistakes ‘a definition for a syllogism.’” Tribe 4 (quoting Ely 924). The definition of a “viable” fetus is one that is capable of surviving outside the womb, but why is this the point at which the State’s interest becomes compelling?...This arbitrary line has not found much support among philosophers and ethicists who have attempted to justify a right to abortion. Some have argued that a fetus should not be entitled to legal protection until it acquires the characteristics that they regard as defining what it means to be a “person.” Among the characteristics that have been offered as essential attributes of “personhood” are sentience, selfawareness, the ability to reason, or some combination thereof. By this logic, it would be an open question whether even born individuals, including young children or those afflicted with certain developmental or medical conditions, merit protection as “persons.” But even if one takes the view that “personhood” begins when a certain attribute or combination of attributes is acquired, it is very hard to see why viability should mark the point where “personhood” begins. The most obvious problem with any such argument is that viability is heavily dependent on factors that have nothing to do with the characteristics of a fetus. 50-51

Justice White complained that the Court was engaging in “unrestrained imposition of its own extraconstitutional value preferences.” Thornburgh, 476 U. S., at 794 (dissenting opinion). And the United States as amicus curiae asked the Court to overrule Roe five times in the decade before Casey, see 505 U. S., at 844 (joint opinion), and then asked the Court to overrule it once more in Casey itself.

When Casey revisited Roe almost 20 years later, very little of Roe’s reasoning was defended or preserved. The Court abandoned any reliance on a privacy right and instead grounded the abortion right entirely on the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. 505 U. S., at 846. The Court did not reaffirm Roe’s erroneous account of abortion history. In fact, none of the Justices in the majority said anything about the history of the abortion right. And as for precedent, the Court relied on essentially the same body of cases that Roe had cited. Thus, with respect to the standard grounds for constitutional decisionmaking—text, history, and precedent—Casey did not attempt to bolster Roe’s reasoning. The Court also made no real effort to remedy one of the greatest weaknesses in Roe’s analysis: its much-criticized discussion of viability. 55

Neither decision [Roe nor Casey] has ended debate over the issue of a constitutional right to obtain an abortion. Indeed, in this case, 26 States expressly ask us to overrule Roe and Casey and to return the issue of abortion to the people and their elected representatives. This Court’s inability to end debate on the issue should not have been surprising. This Court cannot bring about the permanent resolution of a rancorous national controversy simply by dictating a settlement and telling the people to move on. Whatever influence the Court may have on public attitudes must stem from the strength of our opinions, not an attempt to exercise “raw judicial power.” Roe, 410 U. S., at 222 (White, J., dissenting). We do not pretend to know how our political system or society will respond to today’s decision overruling Roe and Casey. And even if we could foresee what will happen, we would have no authority to let that knowledge influence our decision. We can only do our job, which is to interpret the law, apply longstanding principles of stare decisis, and decide this case accordingly. We therefore hold that the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion. Roe and Casey must be overruled, and the authority to regulate abortion must be returned to the people and their elected representatives. 68-69

Precedents should be respected, but sometimes the Court errs, and occasionally the Court issues an important decision that is egregiously wrong. When that happens, stare decisis is not a straitjacket. And indeed, the dissent eventually admits that a decision could “be overruled just because it is terribly wrong,” though the dissent does not explain when that would be so. Post, at 45. 70

Under our precedents, rational-basis review is the appropriate standard for such challenges. As we have explained, procuring an abortion is not a fundamental constitutional right because such a right has no basis in the Constitution’s text or in our Nation’s history. See supra, at 8–39.

It follows that the States may regulate abortion for legitimate reasons, and when such regulations are challenged under the Constitution, courts cannot “substitute their social and economic beliefs for the judgment of legislative bodies.”...A law regulating abortion, like other health and welfare laws, is entitled to a “strong presumption of validity.” Heller v. Doe, 509 U. S. 312, 319 (1993). It must be sustained if there is a rational basis on which the legislature could have thought that it would serve legitimate state interests. 77

These legitimate interests include respect for and preservation of prenatal life at all stages of development, Gonzales, 550 U. S., at 157–158; the protection of maternal health and safety; the elimination of particularly gruesome or barbaric medical procedures; the preservation of the integrity of the medical profession; the mitigation of fetal pain; and the prevention of discrimination on the basis of race, sex, or disability. . See id., at 156– 157; Roe, 410 U. S., at 150; cf. Glucksberg, 521 U. S., at 728– 731 (identifying similar interests).

These legitimate interests justify Mississippi’s Gestational Age Act. Except “in a medical emergency or in the case of a severe fetal abnormality,” the statute prohibits abortion “if the probable gestational age of the unborn human being has been determined to be greater than fifteen (15) weeks.” Miss. Code Ann. §41–41–191(4)(b). The Mississippi Legislature’s findings recount the stages of “human prenatal development” and assert the State’s interest in “protecting the life of the unborn.” §2(b)(i). The legislature also found that abortions performed after 15 weeks typically use the dilation and evacuation procedure, and the legislature found the use of this procedure “for nontherapeutic or elective reasons [to be] a barbaric practice, dangerous for the maternal patient, and demeaning to the medical profession.” §2(b)(i)(8); see also Gonzales, 550 U. S., at 135–143 (describing such procedures). These legitimate interests provide a rational basis for the Gestational Age Act, and it follows that respondents’ constitutional challenge must fail. 

We end this opinion where we began. Abortion presents a profound moral question. The Constitution does not prohibit the citizens of each State from regulating or prohibiting abortion. Roe and Casey arrogated that authority. We now overrule those decisions and return that authority to the people and their elected representatives. The judgment of the Fifth Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. It is so ordered. 78-79

Monday, July 4, 2022

Desiderio desideravi: Plinthos commentary


My first reaction, as with numerous other Pope Francis Papal pronouncements, is, Where is the official Latin text to be found? As of this morning, the Vatican web page of that June 29th, 2022 Apostolic Letter does not provide the Latin typical edition. How is one to know which text is the reference point among the five translations provided?

The sections most relevant to traditional Catholics are nos. 31 and 61.

In 31 Pope Francis erroneously equates Sacrosanctum concilium’s call with the Novus ordo (the Ordinary Form [OF]) of the Roman Rite, which, in fact, was not produced directly by Vatican II but by the "Consilium for the reform of the liturgical books," the liturgical commission set up by Pope Paul VI after the Council and headed by Annibale Bugnini. In saying the OF is the unique expression of the Roman Rite, he asserts a non-fact. Even the Missal of 1570 was never the unique expression of the Roman Rite.

But I concur when he says the problem is “ecclesiological.” The question of liturgical discipline is an important matter for the good of the Church.

In 61 He argues that the approval of Paul VI and of John Paul II is the guarantee of the Novus ordo's conformity with Vat II. “We cannot go back.” And he intends to reestablish “unity.” Here is another error, because the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite is not a unitary form of the Roman Rite, notice, for instance, the Neo-Catechumenate form of worship as compared to a Mass of the Charismatic Renewal, and compare that to a papal OF Mass ad orientem, in Latin. "We cannot go back," if it has any meaning, must mean that we cannot delete the reform of the reform by Pope Benedict XVI.

The vague directives of the Novus ordo necessitate a wide variety of liturgical expressions, which results in very significant manifest differences from place to place. Acknowledging that problem of disunity in the liturgy is what compelled the Holy Father Pope Francis to publish Desiderio desideravi, to urge uniformity in the celebration of the Novus ordo!, having already summarily declared that the Extraordinary Form does not even exist. He treats this in nos. 48-62 (Ars celebrandi).

Pope Francis and most of the Novus ordo world continues to ignore and neglect the greatest fruit of the great liturgical reform of the past two centuries, as commissioned by the Vatican, to the monks of Solemnes over a century ago, the fruit of which is The Roman Gradual and the Liber Usualis. The great revival of Gregorian Chant and Polyphony today (e.g. Musica Sacra) is, by far, the best fruit of the modern reform (and the reform of the reform) of the Liturgy! It is hard to understand what the Holy Father means in this document when he speaks of "the reform" in a monolithic sense apparently unaware that the initial liturgical revolutionaries (i.e. Bugnini and all those who reject Sacrosanctum concilium's insistence on the maintaining of the Latin language as normative in the Roman Liturgy and of Gregorian chant and polyphony having pride of place in liturgical music and reiterated in GIRM, 41, 61) have already been superseded by an ever young and enormous wave of new reformers. The reformed liturgy has already been reformed. Pope Francis seems to be advocating for something which already happened, viz., the proper interpretation of the liturgy which was carried out by his immediate predecessor. It seems Pope Francis never read Ratzinger/Benedict XVI on the proper liturgical reform, e.g. The Spirit of the Liturgy.

This type of isolation in time is typical of the Argentinian psyche. When I visited Argentina 15 years ago it seemed to me that the Argentinians, with their pro-communism and pro-freudianism, were stuck somewhere in the 60's with ideas which the West had tried and rejected.

What the Holy Father seems to be doing liturgically is groping for answers which have already been given definitively by his predecessors, ignoring their enormous contributions. After the papacy of Pope Benedict XVI you cannot speak of the liturgical changes of Vatican II without any reference to his temendous work and insights. Pope Francis claims to speak with "precision" but, in fact, because of his neglect of the "reform of the reform" and "the hermeneutic of continuity" he is actually making what was clear vague.

Desiderio desideravi claims to be a longing for unity. The Holy Father must know that any Catholic "unity" worthy of the name is unity in the fullness of the truth we have received, the Deposit of Faith: cherishing, defending and promoting the same faith/morals/sacramental life in Christ, of every Age.
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