A Much Needed Crusade

by Br. Alexis Bugnolo

The recent removal of the Monument to the Ten Commandments from the State Judicial Building in Montgomery, Alabama, marks a poignant moment in the history of our Nation. More poignant than the Supreme Court's ruling in Roe vs. Wade.

No longer is the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution going to be interpreted in its original sense. That amendment reads in part: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." The Federal Court in its recent decisions against the Supreme Court Justice of the State of Alabama, including the Supreme Court of the United States, by refusing his appeal, have recast this precept.

It now reads, "Neither the Congress nor the States, nor any public official, elected or appointed, therefore, shall make a law respecting any religion, except Secular Humanism, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

No longer is this country a Nation, "by, for, and of the people", that Great Facade is no longer tenable. It is now a nation in which the tyranny of those who oppose the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is the rule of law ipso facto, and all who oppose them have no rights whatsoever.

The removal of the Monument to the Ten Commandments from the lobby of the Alabama State Judicial Building (it is currently being hidden in the press office, where the public is not allowed to see it) is more a more poignant historical moment that the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Roe vs. Wade, because, while that directly attacked mankind and indirectly the law of God; this directly attacks the Law of God, being a blasphemous affrontery to the authority of the Divine Majesty.

Of course this removal is not an isolated event. Many writers have remarked similarly about a myriad of other events since the members of the Masonic Lodge became predominant on the U.S. Supreme Court in the early part of the last century. This year alone, this Nation has seen an increasingly public disavowal of the Christian heritage which formed the original context for the interpretation of the laws of our nation, both Federal and State. There is the California Law which makes it now illegal for a Catholic Hospital to sell itself to another, with the contractual proviso that the new amalgamated Medical institution will not perform abortions or sterilizations. The implicit legal thesis is that there are no longer any civil rights for U.S. Citizens who wish to express their religious beliefs in contractual law: such contracts will now be deemed "illegal" and "unjust" and "infringing upon the liberties of others."

Then there is the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in the case of the Texas Anti-Sodomy law. In this, the majority of the Court explicitly denied the historical content and context of Federal and State law for no other purpose but to establish a precedent for attacking openly the Christian morals upon which this Nation was founded by its own people.

One Protestant Minister outside the Alabama State Judicial Building put it this way, when he learned the Monument had been moved: "What they did was wrong; but it will resound to the whole Nation!"

I join my voice in saying: Let it resound to the whole Nation! Let this usurpation of the Laws of God and of the rights of the States to legislate accordingly, strike the consciences of the Nation. Let good people everywhere who acknowledge the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob stop and consider that this is the moment when they need to act to change the fundamental course of this Nation.

We Catholics should be no less eager to join this clarion call. While it is true that the fundamental law of this land, the U.S. Constitution is not harmonious with the teaching of Christ and His True Church, the Catholic Church, this is nevertheless no reason to stand by and allow this Nation to be corrupted further; but rather all the more a reason why we must still seek to reform our laws and conform them to His Teaching.

After all, it is the Catholic Church alone which is the Church Militant upon earth. No other force in this world has the Holy Spirit to guide, protect, enlighten, inspire and urge on to see the Laws of Christ above all other laws, and all things put into subjection to the Immortal King of all ages.

What this Nation needs is a Crusade for Christ the King. I agree with those writers that we Catholics cannot have any confidence in the existing political structures of the Republican or Democratic Party. Both parties have become, more and more, merely the instruments by which the same industrialists and capitalists rule this Nation and its people, under the appearances of a representative government. We need a party which is truly "by, for, and of the people," founded on a recognition and allegiance to Jesus Christ.

If the Shiites of Iraq are seen to have the right to govern their own future nation in accord with their religious principles, because they are the demographic majority in Iraq today; how much more do Christians have a right to govern this Nation of ours because they are the demographic majority. Much more do they because it is Christ who is alone the True Savior, the True Redeemer, the True Messiah, the True Priest, the one and only True King of All Nations. And though it is likewise true that His Kingdom (the Church) is not of this world, nevertheless it is also true that the nations of this world belong to God, and have the grave and essential duty to recognize and frame all their laws in harmony with the Laws of Jesus Christ.

We Catholics therefore have a solemn duty in the U.S.A. not to hide our heads in the sands or abstain from political activism. But we likewise have a solemn duty not to waste or squander our efforts on a divided and compromising political strategy of working with the Republican and Democratic party systems. What we need to do is found a new party, with authentically Christian principles; with the determination to expel those who do not agree and accept and put these into practice, and the resoluteness to refuse all support which would demand any compromises.

This is a duty not only for the laity, but also for the religious and clergy of our Nation. Because unlike the Neo-Thomists who hold that the political order cannot be reformed or fashioned into a Christendom, since, as they say, the ends of the State differ from the ends of the Church, it is rather the teaching of the Church that all things must be subordinated to Christ for them to be restored, and that it is the duty of the whole Church to seek the restoration of all things, including the political order, in Christ.

This is The Much Needed Crusade. Let it be the apostolate of every Catholic citizen of these United States of America.

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