Collinsville, Illinois - August 31, 2018 – Yesterday, Illinois House candidates Dwight Kay (Glen Carbon) and Blaine Wilhour (Effingham) joined a growing a coalition of conservative reform legislators and candidates who have pledged to refuse a legislative pension when they are elected to the state legislature. Standing with the candidates were State Representatives Jeanne Ives (Wheaton) and Brad Halbrook (Shelbyville).
State Representative Jeanne Ives said, by signing the pledge, Kay and Wilhour are demonstrating the type of leadership that is needed to change Illinois. “We need wholesale pension reform,” said Ives. “It begins with legislators.”
State Representative Brad Halbrook discussed dire situation in Illinois by saying, “The system is broken… The Edgar Pension Ramp has actually become the Edgar Pension Time Bomb... Action has to be taken now to protect employees, and those in and near retirement … [Legislators] have to lead by example.”
Blaine Wilhour, a conservative reformer running for State Representative in House District 107, outlined the case for leadership and culture change saying, “Illinois is in a crisis. There isn’t a softer way to put it. … Maintaining the status quo is going to result in further erosion of core services… I got into this race determined that I was going to do my best to make a difference… If you’re going to make a difference you have to have some tough conversations. This is a tough conversation that affects a lot of people.” “The reform movement starts right here in Central and Southern Illinois,” continued Wilhour. “It’s up to us to drive these ideas in Springfield… Legislators have to lead the way. I am proud to sign the pledge.”
Dwight Kay a candidate for State Representative in the House District 112 outlined the stakes for Illinoisans in this election. “I think Illinois is worth fighting for,” said Kay. “The problem, right now, no one is fighting. It is almost malfeasance for legislators on the other side of the aisle, who have kicked this can down the road for 10, 15, 20 years to say, “Now we’re going to throw it back to the taxpayers because they’re the only ones who have any money…
“The truth is structurally we are bankrupt,” continued Kay. “Yet, throughout State of Illinois campaigning is not about pensions. It’s not about jobs. And it’s not about reforms. It’s about who can run the best smear campaign… I think people need to get out and debate this issue… Make sure people understand what’s at stake. We’re talking about whether Illinois is an affordable place to live down the road, or an unfit place to live down the road.”
The pledge was penned by Wirepoints, an economic, business and policy journal.
Other candidates who have signed the pledge include:
After Labor Day there are only 7 weeks before Early Voting begins!!!!!
Ask yourself…….
What am I doing to insure there is a RED WAVEon November 6th?
What am I doing to help get the Republican Vote out?
How many doors have I knocked on to inform people of the importance?
How many people can I reach over the Labor Day week-end?
You are only one, but still you are one;
You cannot do everything, but you can do something;
Because you cannot do everything,
Do not refuse to do the something you can.
If you live in Will County call the County Clerk 815-740-4626 and ask for a Ballot to be mailed to your home. Get a Ballot for your Children either sent to them at school or to your home. No reason necessary.
If you are in other counties call your County Clerks office.
VOTE!
November 6th
Early Voting by mail Begins September 27th but you can request a ballot now. October 22nd at polling locations.
The mainstream news has been awash lately in talk over the danger of economic "contagion," primarily due to lack of dollar liquidity in emerging markets. This lack of liquidity is being pegged as a trigger for instability in stocks and bonds around the world, and this time around it is the nation of Turkey that is being called a potential trigger for a fiscal domino effect spreading through multiple countries.
We have heard talk of "contagion" before. Not long ago, Italy's political shift toward a supposedly populist government led to fears of debt contagion within the European Union; this is still a valid concern, just not for the reasons the mainstream financial media usually presents.
The issue of contagion must be examined through a different set of parameters besides those fed to us by the financial media. In their world, everything is a matter of unpredictable cause and effect; everything is random and coincidental. Everything is chaos waiting to happen, and when crisis does strike, all can be blamed on a set of unrelated but interconnected scapegoats.
They will claim it was the "populists," conservatives, conservative philosophy or the notion of national sovereignty. Or they will blame it on even more abstract concepts of "human greed" and "individual selfishness."
These excuses for unstable systems and disasters stem from a propaganda ploy developed by DARPA called "Linchpin Theory." It is the widely promoted idea that human systems collapse "naturally" when they become "too complex," and all it takes to start this collapse in motion is a single well placed "linchpin" pulled at the right moment. In other words, DARPA wants you to believe that there is no such thing as organized conspiracy and that all disasters are caused by chance.
Of course, the linchpin idea and the notion that overcomplexity is to blame for all the world's ills helps globalists greatly. For if human systems need to be streamlined, what better way to do this than to get rid of sovereign nation states, governments and economies and centralize everything down into a one world economy, a one world government, a new world order?
What linchpin theory ignores is the careful strategic planning required to position all the geopolitical dominoes in a perfect chain so that they can be knocked over by that one person, country or event.
Human systems actually tend to lean toward redundancy when we are left to build these systems ourselves — meaning, humans prefer to decentralize to a point. We do not like having all decisions bottlenecked through a single dictatorship. We do not like having all our resources controlled by a single source. We do not like having all trade and commerce and communication dominated by monopolies. We do not like our safety determined by a single watchman. We often end up rebelling against centralization because it is actually centralization that breeds weakness in systems, not complexity. And complexity is created through decentralization.
When we look at the true causes of numerous economic and political crises around the world, we usually find globalists and their agent institutions right at the center. Foremost of these institutions are central banks.
In my article "All The Old World Systems Are being Deliberately Torn Down," published in November of last year, I warned of several trends which would likely lead to economic instability. One of these trends was the possible breakup of NATO starting with Turkey. Turkey's leadership under Recep Erdogen has been increasingly erratic and violent, most notably after the highly suspicious and likely fake military coup attempt in 2016. The coup gave Erdogen a perfect rationale for his consolidation of power, all while his political opponents could be systematically rounded up and imprisoned.
The "thwarted coup" narrative has been popular lately. First in Turkey and then in Saudi Arabia under Mohammad Bin Salman — two nations that are quickly plunging into even more aggressive dictatorship and that are vital to the United States strategically and economically. Over the past two years, both countries have become more distant allies. Saudi Arabia has consistently discussed moving away from its arrangements to continue holding U.S. treasury debt and using the dollar as the petro-currency. Turkey has consistently discussed breaking from NATO and ending its arrangement to allow U.S. military assets to stage within its borders.
Another narrative that has been popular lately has been the idea that the global trade war will be the cause of all our economic displacement for years to come. The trade war is a perfect distraction, providing the chaos fuel necessary to allow central banks to pull the plug on economic support and then blame the resulting crisis on various random "linchpins." This is exactly what they have been doing.
In terms of stock markets, I think it has now been clearly established that the Federal Reserve's balance sheet cuts and interest rate hikes are the main cause (if not the only cause) of stock rallies and declines. Almost every single major decline in equities takes place within 7-10 days after the Fed dumps assets from its balance sheet. One can study the Fed's progressive cuts over the year on their own website and compare to the moves in the Dow or S&P.
In July, for example, I told my readers to expect a recovery in stocks due to the Fed freezing balance sheet cuts during that month. The Fed held the balance sheet steady for most of July, only cutting a mere $12 billion at the end of the month. In August, the Fed has already cut over $20 billion and will probably cut more in the next two weeks, which would indicate an aggressive fall in stocks this month into September. The Fed controls when and how stock markets crash... at least for now.
This correlation and obvious causation are rarely if ever mentioned in the mainstream. Instead, we get talk of "contagion" caused by Turkey and the trade war.
The Fed's balance sheet cuts do not only cause havoc in stock markets. Emerging market economies have grown increasingly dependent on the flow of cheap dollars and financial assets precipitated by the Fed's stimulus measures over the past decade. If you were wondering where most of that bailout money and quantitative easing money were going over the years and you did not study the audit of TARP, then you might be surprised to find out that trillions in no interest overnight loans were going to foreign banks and corporations rather than U.S. banks. This included emerging market nations.
Countries like China, India, Brazil and even Turkey all used easy cash flow from central banks like the Fed to prop up their binds markets, their currencies as well as their equities. India, for example, openly complained about the Fed's move to raise interest rates and cut the balance sheet, warning that it would cause instability in global markets dependent on the dollar.
The Fed's unwind of QE is hitting emerging markets first, but the U.S. economy is next on the chopping block as corporate debt now sits near historic highs. The only other safety net for U.S. stocks has been corporate stock buybacks, which corporations have been funding with no-interest loans from the Fed and other banks. As the Fed continues to raise rates corporate debt costs will skyrocket and these stock buybacks will shrivel. After this happens, each new cut of the Fed's balance sheet will result in an even more dramatic fall in the Dow.
Ultimately, emerging markets are going to look for alternatives to the dollar as the world reserve if they don't get a supply of the fiscal stimulus drug they have become so addicted to. This is already happening in China and Russia as they begin to dump U.S. Treasurys and de-dollarize.
So, we have international markets suffering from liquidity withdrawals due to the Federal Reserve, we have U.S. stock markets under threat of reversal due to Fed interest rate hikes and balance sheet dumps and we have the dollar's world reserve currency status under threat as multiple nations seek out alternatives after feeling jilted by the Fed taking away the punch bowl.
It would appear that the only "contagion" is that of central banks; more specifically the Fed. Yet, all we hear about is the trade war and "linchpins" like Turkey. The masses are being flooded with lies, conditioned to accept false explanations about the true cause of a crisis that is about to occur. A crisis which the central bankers are deliberately engineering.
This technology is fairly new, so it might be too early to say China is winning the 5G race, but the country is very focused on becoming a leader in the industry.
According to a study released by Deloitte, since 2015, China has built about 350,000 cell sites. The U.S., meanwhile, has built around 30,000.
China has been working diligently to install new wireless sites, which need to be placed on either lampposts or utility poles in densely populated areas.
China is so focused on expanding 5G throughout the country that it’s making a significant economic commitment to the technology. Its five-year economic plan, which runs through 2020, is calling for $400 billion in spending on 5G investment.
The Deloitte report said, “Consequently, China and other countries may be creating 5G networks, which will ultimately be used to power self-driving cars, virtual reality, and smart cities.”
5G networks will unlock endless possibilities from technology and enhance any smart devices we already use.
Obviously, the first country that successfully sets up 5G networks will have a massive lead over other countries working toward 5G adoption. The Deloitte report mentioned “first-adopter countries embracing 5G could sustain more than a decade of competitive advantage.” And right now, China is dominating with its installation of new wireless sites, which means it has the competitive advantage.
Two other important factors in the 5G race are research and development and the ability for the government to quickly allocate additional radio frequencies to wireless companies. 5G needs more bandwidth, and the only way to achieve it is with these radio frequencies.
The time, money, and energy devoted to research and development in new technologies is always key when it comes to becoming a global leader in a certain industry or tech. China is devoting its time, money, and energy to 5G, and it’s already paying off.China Mobile Hong Kong is Completing 5G Network Tests
China Mobile Hong Kong continues to work on 5G Wi-Fi. It recently announced that it is completing 5G network tests and is succeeding in connecting non-5G devices and computers to its Wi-FI hotspots.
5G-capable smartphones are still a year or more away from being fully accessible; however, devices will have the opportunity to connect using 5G Wi-Fi hotspots. China Mobile Hong Kong believes it will be ready to provide full services once rollout is complete.
The company said:
China Mobile Hong Kong has planned to build a 28GHz 5G network in selected locations by year end to conduct a field test...
The company is also working with partners to develop smart city-related applications such as smart lamp posts to be better equipped for 5G network construction and application development.
This is just one example of the dedication China and its tech companies have to 5G.
China Mobile Hong Kong continues to heavily invest in 5G research and development. It recently signed agreements with HTC to develop a solid 5G infrastructure and compatible 5G devices.
The realization that this industry is going to bring in huge profits and economic benefits is going to outweigh the current costs to deploy the technology. It's all going to be worth it in the end.Does the U.S. Have a Chance?
Despite what is happening right now, the U.S. isn’t sitting back and watching China dominate the 5G market. The U.S. is making its own strides to become a world leader of the next-generation technology.
Last month, the U.S Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was advised by the Executive Branch to deny China Mobile entry. The Executive Branch made this decision based on “substantial and unacceptable risk to U.S. law enforcement and foreign intelligence collection.”
The CIA, FBI, and NSA told Americans in February that they shouldn’t use products from Huawei and ZTE because of the potential security risks with their devices. However, these agencies don’t have any evidence to back up these claims, but warning Americans that there might be some risk if they purchase devices by those companies could help reduce the market share of the companies, and ultimately China’s lead in the 5G race.
Additionally, the Trump administration has been contemplating creating a set of standards for a nationwide 5G mobile network to prevent China from dominating the industry. The threat is real. But it doesn’t seem like the U.S. is entirely afraid of its place in the industry.
The U.S. is gaining speed when it comes to its research for 5G. In fact, two industry giants, Intel and Qualcomm, are hard at work researching and developing 5G technologies, so the U.S. will have a chance to win the 5G race in the same way it became a leader in 4G technologies.
But as of right now, China is in the lead. A report from CTIA, a trade association for the U.S. wireless industry, said China was the country most prepared to deploy 5G networks. South Korea was second, the U.S. was third, and Japan was fourth.
It’s going to be an interesting race to 5G. I know I’m going to be paying very close attention to it!
Monica Savaglia is Wealth Daily’s IPO specialist. With passion and knowledge, she wants to open up the world of IPOs and their long-term potential to everyday investors. She does this through her newsletter IPO Authority, a one-stop resource for everything IPO. She also contributes regularly to the Wealth Daily e-letter. To learn more about Monica, click here.
The restoration of civil society By Bob Livingston
John Locke was one of the favorite philosophers of our Founding Fathers. He observed a basic scriptural and natural law to be the law of self-preservation. He described how self-preservation leads to liberty, as one creates a home, marries another and the couple raise a family. Liberty becomes a standard among men only among a civilized people who covenant together in civil society.
In response to the infestation of our institutions and daily lives by pop culture and its practitioners — and invading hoards bringing with them their socialism and foreign cultures — many families have withdrawn to the privacy and safety of their own homes and neighborhoods. Only there can they preserve themselves and Christo-Western culture. This is the first law of nature at work, as it has been consistently since the advent of Western civilization.
The experts are saying that such withdrawal and individual liberty is destroying civil society. These hypocrites are engaging in Orwellian double-speak. Self-preservation is a building block of civil society.
Giving special interest groups privileges under color of law is one thing. Funneling them the wealth of the middle class through the welfare state is another thing, and many balk. Giving them our children, and thus our very blood and destiny, is quite another thing indeed. Locke described those who come against individuals and communities as ravenous wolves to be destroyed by any means. There is no more meaningful metaphor for us today.
As civil society breaks down, so does civility. We are seeing it daily in the growing number of attacks — both verbal and physical — by people on others on the basis of political philosophy. The political elite have used divide and conquer politics to great effect, creating minority special interests to pit against one another for spoils and special privileges.
As for the decline of civility, it can also be traced directly to the same criminal politics. It's a zero-sum game. Virtually every moral, cultural, spiritual, political, business and civil practice of the middle class, including civility, has decreased as a public standard in accordance with the increasing number of special interests and with the increasing number of laws granting them special privileges.
We now know that the combined onslaught of pop culture and the official endorsement of anti-Christian, immoral, anti-American people and activities such as open relationships, consequentless sex via abortion, gay marriage, bisexuality, polyamory, transgender and pedophilia have irretrievably separated the middle class from what was formerly their own United States of America. That nation is no longer their own, and so, against the criminality and incivility of the politicians and alien invaders, the real American nation has withdrawn its borders into the homes of these average Americans.
Self-preservation is the first organizing factor for nations. After all, what are borders? The global elite want a world without borders. Armies and even corporations are organized with self-preservation in mind, both in structure of specific ranks and duties and in the ways they conduct their affairs, whether fighting battles or fighting off hostile mergers.
Christo-Western nations have conquered others and advanced their culture and civilization because of their consistent practice of the first law of nature. Self-preservation does not begin with these large institutions, however, but with the individual and the family. Self-government begins with personal accountability before God and then one's spouse and children. The irony today is that modern (pseudo) conservative politicians ignore the fact that self-preservation is the ultimate family value.
One of the beautiful aspects of medieval times was its traditional emphasis on family and community kinship. The misnomer "Dark Ages" has been applied to medieval times by those who want to propagandize history. As Montesquieu, another favorite philosopher of the Founders, observed, perfect liberty proceeded from the ancient Germanic tribes, or families. By the time of Charlemagne and the onset of the Middle Ages, the family and tribal network of the tribes had evolved into feudalism, or the law of the communal manor. The feudal manor was the castle. It had hard, high, windowless walls and towers for family and communal protection against invaders. The tower and walkway walls were cut out for them to shoot arrows and, eventually, cannons. Moats were constructed around the castles, with draw-bridges serving as the sole entry to these mighty fortresses.
Feudal lords owned and managed these habitats, but security and even housing were provided to loyal servants and ordinary folks. The bonds of kinship were extended to families willing to pledge their loyalty, or fealty, to the lord of the manor and to one another. In this way, family duties were extended to others, in covenant. Civil society was born. As the manor grew into small cities, the cities were also walled, just as they were in ancient times. Socioeconomic class levels and bonds tended to reflect martial organization for community defense purposes, led by the true forerunners of the Renaissance man: the citizen-farmer-statesman-soldier. It is a practice of self-preservation dating back to the Germanic tribes, to the Roman Republic, to Athens and to ancient Israel.
In response to the perversion of our nation, many are reverting to these practices. The streets in our towns and cities are once again becoming "gated communities," with steel bars in gates and windows everywhere. Exclusive housing developments even have high walls, barbed wire and gated entrances with armed security booths manned around the clock. Private security firms police our homes because we have learned that the civil police are either ineffective or corrupted by criminal politicians.
Homes now have dead-bolted and impenetrable doors, sophisticated electronic alarm systems that automatically notify authorities, barred windows, security lights, motion detectors, video cameras, guard dogs, etc. Specialists are hired to design security systems and even to create special homes designed from the ground up with self-preservation in mind. Inventors are busy coming up with new, creative ways to preserve our homes and families.
Criminals are only the most visible of the enemies of self-preservation and civil society. They are already armed for their invasion. It is thus obvious how much the criminals enjoy their role in destroying middle class America.
Yet the trend toward self-preservation portends good. Perhaps in returning to homes and communities built for self-preservation, as in feudal times, Americans will also return to the higher principles of preserving faith and family. Perhaps then the larger nation can restore its borders — spiritually, morally and culturally — and thus restore its identity, purpose and civil society.
For now, true liberty exists only at home, and anything that comes against the home makes war on your family and your attempted self-preservation. Beware of those who would destroy your self-preservation and individuality, ostensibly in the name of creating a more civil society.
Lawyers
representing Cook County want a judge to toss a lawsuit that claims the county
failed to follow a new state constitutional amendment aimed at protecting road
construction funds.
If the
county loses, it could put a massive hole in its budget. And the state of
Illinois could be next.
A group
of associations representing the construction trades sued Cook County alleging
it moved $250 million meant for road, bridges and other projects to other
things not related to construction. That was outlawed in 2016 when voters
passed the Safe Roads “Lockbox” amendment.
The
constitutional change, which was supported by a majority of voters, requires
funds put into special accounts meant for roads, bridges and other construction
funds to be restricted to those purposes.
Before
the amendment was passed, it was commonplace for state lawmakers to authorize
money be “swept” from special funds like this and then the debt would be
forgiven at a later date. When construction industry groups pushed for the
constitutional change ahead of the 2016 election, they said lawmakers had
diverted billions in gas tax revenue designated for road work to shore up budgets.
Mike
Sturino, president and CEO of the Illinois Road & Transportation
Builders Association, said Cook County hasn’t been honest with its budgeting.
“When
an elected official promises to raise revenue based upon transportation so that
it can be reinvested to be used more as a user fee instead of a tax, the people
who they represent deserve to be leveled with,” he said. “What we’ve found time
and again are diversions, sweeps of money that were promised for infrastructure
were being spent on unrelated uses.”
His group
is looking into a number of other units of government that it suspects aren’t
abiding by the constitutional provision, including the state of Illinois
itself.
“The
state of Illinois is one of the governmental bodies that we’re looking at to
make sure they’re in compliance,” he said. “We have a number of inquiries going
on throughout the state.”
Cook
County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s office declined to comment on the pending
litigation.
The
hearing for the dismissal plea is set for Aug. 24.
Increased Taxes cause property to loose value, business to , and less jobs. I can't think of anything positive about increased taxes. I wish we did not have to give the Government are hard earned money, but do understand you do need taxes for a limited number of things the people can't do themselves like plowing the snow on the street and maintaining infrastructure like sewers, roads, bridges, and red lights. Government unfortunately is like a BEAST eating our tax dollars as fast as they collect them.
Taxes, Rules and Regulations are always increasing if the BEAST gets its way. It is the job of each elected Official to try work to decrease the size of Government. We need to cut taxes, and regulations that are making our communities unsustainable. Business closings and people moving are a symptom of the problem. Your property tax increases and your property value decreases.
When I got on the Will County Board Democrats raised the taxes to the max and talked about implementing a Public Safety Tax. Republicans took control and cut the tax rate every year since, while building a Courthouse, Health Department, and Public Safety Building. Point being Democrats have been in control of the State, Chicago, and Cook County for longer than I can remember. Madigan is basically the king. Look at the results of tax and spend policies. The states under Democrat control are in the worst fiscal Condition.
The answer is to vote Republican. You have everything to gain by making sure you vote for a Fiscally Conservative Republican
What would you do with an extra $459,269? That's how much money Steve Weber is making for local schools, parks, and villages from property taxes. We pay way too much, so it's good to know that we have a County Treasurer who's doing something to keep them from taking more.
Most counties collect property taxes and sit on the money before distributing it. Steve Weber is taking that money and investing it to get them more than they expect--$459,269 this year alone. It may not lower your taxes, but Steve's trying to keep them from going up even more.
We all hate paying property taxes. When Steve Weber became County Treasurer, he fought school districts so he could put your money to work before they got it. This year alone, schools, parks, and villages will reap $500,000 more thanks to this strategy. He can't lower taxes, but he can do everything to slow them from raising taxes. That's what happens when you elect a financial professional, not a politician, as County Treasurer.
August 18, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – Bishop Robert Morlino of Madison, Wisconsin, issued today the most powerful letter to date from a U.S bishop in the wake of the most recent sex abuse scandals.
In the pastoral letter to his diocese, Morlino speaks with utter clarity about the “depravity” that has been allowed to fester in the Church and insists it must be “rooted out” even from within the U.S. episcopate.
“It is time to admit that there is a homosexual subculture within the hierarchy of the Catholic Church that is wreaking great devastation in the vineyard of the Lord,” he writes.
The sex abuse crisis has continued, he says, because the modern Church has become too comfortable with sin in her teaching and practice.
“For too long we have diminished the reality of sin – we have refused to call a sin a sin – and we have excused sin in the name of a mistaken notion of mercy,” he writes. “In our efforts to be open to the world we have become all too willing to abandon the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”
He continues:
We must be done with sin. It must be rooted out and again considered unacceptable. Love sinners? Yes. Accept true repentance? Yes. But do not say sin is okay. And do not pretend that grave violations of office and of trust come without grave, lasting consequences. For the Church, the crisis we face …
The bishop urges the faithful to unite with him and the clergy of his diocese “in making public and private acts of reparation to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus and to the Immaculate Heart of Mary for all the sins of sexual depravity committed by members of the clergy and episcopacy.”
He says he will be offering a special Mass on September 14, the Feast of the Triumph of the Cross, and is asking all clergy, religious, and diocesan personnel to fast and abstain from meat during the Church’s traditional Autumn Ember Days on September 19, 21, and 22.
“Some sins, like some demons, can only be driven out by prayer and fasting,” he writes.
“Right now there is a lot of justified anger and passion coming from many holy and faithful lay people and clerics across the country, calling for real reform and ‘house cleaning’ of this type of depravity. I stand with them,” he concludes. “I don’t know yet how this will play out nationally or internationally. But I do know this, and I make this my last point and last promise, for the Diocese of Madison: ‘As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.’”
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ of the Diocese of Madison,
The past weeks have brought a great deal of scandal, justified anger, and a call for answers and action by many faithful Catholics here in the U.S. and overseas, directed at the Church hierarchy regarding sexual sins by bishops, priests, and even cardinals. Still more anger is rightly directed at those who have been complicit in keeping some of these serious sins from coming to light.
For my part – and I know I am not alone – I am tired of this. I am tired of people being hurt, gravely hurt! I am tired of the obfuscation of truth. I am tired of sin. And, as one who has tried – despite my many imperfections – to lay down my life for Christ and His Church, I am tired of the regular violation of sacred duties by those entrusted with immense responsibility from the Lord for the care of His people.
The stories being brought into light and displayed in gruesome detail with regard to some priests, religious, and now even those in places of highest leadership, are sickening. Hearing even one of these stories is, quite literally, enough to make someone sick. But my own sickness at the stories is quickly put into perspective when I recall the fact that many individuals have lived through them for years. For them, these are not stories, they are indeed realities. To them I turn and say, again, I am sorry for what you have suffered and what you continue to suffer in your mind and in your heart.
If you have not already done so, I beg you to reach out, as hard as that may be, and seek help to begin to heal. Also, if you’ve been hurt by a priest of our diocese, I encourage you to come forward, to make a report to law enforcement and to our Victim’s Assistance Coordinator, so that we might begin, with you as an individual, to try and set things right to the greatest extent possible.
There is nothing about these stories that is okay. These actions, committed by more than a few, can only be classified as evil, evil that cries out for justice and sin that must be cast out from our Church.
Faced with stories of the depravity of sinners within the Church, I have been tempted to despair. And why? The reality of sin – even sin in the Church – is nothing new. We are a Church made of sinners, but we are sinners called to sanctity. So what is new? What is new is the seeming acceptance of sin by some in the Church, and the apparent efforts to cover over sin by them and others. Unless and until we take seriously our call to sanctity, we, as an institution and as individuals, will continue to suffer the “wages of sin.”
For too long we have diminished the reality of sin – we have refused to call a sin a sin – and we have excused sin in the name of a mistaken notion of mercy. In our efforts to be open to the world we have become all too willing to abandon the Way, the Truth, and the Life. In order to avoid causing offense we offer to ourselves and to others niceties and human consolation.
Why do we do this? Is it out of an earnest desire to display a misguided sense of being “pastoral?” Have we covered over the truth out of fear? Are we afraid of being disliked by people in this world? Or are we afraid of being called hypocrites because we are not striving tirelessly for holiness in our own lives?
Perhaps these are the reasons, but perhaps it is more or less complex than this. In the end, the excuses do not matter. We must be done with sin. It must be rooted out and again considered unacceptable. Love sinners? Yes. Accept true repentance? Yes. But do not say sin is okay. And do not pretend that grave violations of office and of trust come without grave, lasting consequences.
For the Church, the crisis we face is not limited to the McCarrick affair, or the Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report, or anything else that may come. The deeper crisis that must be addressed is the license for sin to have a home in individuals at every level of the Church. There is a certain comfort level with sin that has come to pervade our teaching, our preaching, our decision making, and our very way of living.
If you’ll permit me, what the Church needs now is more hatred! As I have said previously, St. Thomas Aquinas said that hatred of wickedness actually belongs to the virtue of charity. As the Book of Proverbs says “My mouth shall meditate truth, and my lips shall hate wickedness (Prov. 8:7).” It is an act of love to hate sin and to call others to turn away from sin.
There must be no room left, no refuge for sin – either within our own lives, or within the lives of our communities. To be a refuge for sinners (which we should be), the Church must be a place where sinners can turn to be reconciled. In this I speak of all sin. But to be clear, in the specific situations at hand, we are talking about deviant sexual – almost exclusively homosexual – acts by clerics. We’re also talking about homosexual propositions and abuses against seminarians and young priests by powerful priests, bishops, and cardinals. We are talking about acts and actions which are not only in violation of the sacred promises made by some, in short, sacrilege, but also are in violation of the natural moral law for all. To call it anything else would be deceitful and would only ignore the problem further.
There has been a great deal of effort to keep separate acts which fall under the category of now- culturally-acceptable acts of homosexuality from the publicly-deplorable acts of pedophilia. That is to say, until recently the problems of the Church have been painted purely as problems of pedophilia – this despite clear evidence to the contrary. It is time to be honest that the problems are both and they are more. To fall into the trap of parsing problems according to what society might find acceptable or unacceptable is ignoring the fact that the Church has never held ANY of it to be acceptable – neither the abuse of children, nor any use of one’s sexuality outside of the marital relationship, nor the sin of sodomy, nor the entering of clerics into intimate sexual relationships at all, nor the abuse and coercion by those with authority.
In this last regard, special mention should be made of the most notorious and highest in ranking case, that being the allegations of former-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick’s (oft-rumored, now very public) sexual sins, predation, and abuse of power. The well-documented details of this case are disgraceful and seriously scandalous, as is any covering up of such appalling actions by other Church leaders who knew about it based on solid evidence.
While recent credible accusations of child sexual abuse by Archbishop McCarrick have brought a whole slew of issues to light, long-ignored was the issue of abuse of his power for the sake of homosexual gratification.
It is time to admit that there is a homosexual subculture within the hierarchy of the Catholic Church that is wreaking great devastation in the vineyard of the Lord. The Church’s teaching is clear that the homosexual inclination is not in itself sinful, but it is intrinsically disordered in a way that renders any man stably afflicted by it unfit to be a priest. And the decision to act upon this disordered inclination is a sin so grave that it cries out to heaven for vengeance, especially when it involves preying upon the young or the vulnerable. Such wickedness should be hated with a perfect hatred. Christian charity itself demands that we should hate wickedness just as we love goodness. But while hating the sin, we must never hate the sinner, who is called to conversion, penance, and renewed communion with Christ and His Church, through His inexhaustible mercy.
At the same time, however, the love and mercy which we are called to have even for the worst of sinners does not exclude holding them accountable for their actions through a punishment proportionate to the gravity of their offense. In fact, a just punishment is an important work of love and mercy, because, while it serves primarily as retribution for the offense committed, it also offers the guilty party an opportunity to make expiation for his sin in this life (if he willingly accepts his punishment), thus sparing him worse punishment in the life to come. Motivated, therefore, by love and concern for souls, I stand with those calling for justice to be done upon the guilty.
The sins and crimes of McCarrick, and of far too many others in the Church, bring suspicion and mistrust upon many good and virtuous priests, bishops, and cardinals, and suspicion and mistrust upon many great and respectable seminaries and so many holy and faithful seminarians. The result of the first instance of mistrust harms the Church and the very good work we do in Christ’s name. It causes others to sin in their thoughts, words, and deeds – which is the very definition of scandal. And the second mistrust harms the future of the Church, since our future priests are at stake.
I said that I was tempted to despair in light of all of this. However, that temptation quickly passed, thanks be to God. No matter how large the problem, we know that we are called to go forward in faith, to rely upon God’s promises to us, and to work hard to make every bit of difference we can, within our spheres of influence.
I have recently had the opportunity to talk directly with our seminarians about these very pressing matters, and I have begun to, and will continue to, talk with the priests of the diocese, as well as the faithful, in person and through my weekly column and homilies, making things as clear as I can, from my perspective. Here now, I offer a few thoughts to those of my diocese: In the first place, we must continue to build upon the good work which we have accomplished in protecting the youth and vulnerable of our diocese. This is a work on which we can never rest in our vigilance, nor our efforts to improve. We must continue in our work of education for all and hold to the effective policies that have been implemented, requiring psychological exams for all candidates for ministry, as well as across-the-board background checks for anyone working with children or vulnerable individuals.
Here again, I state, as we have done consistently, if you have knowledge of any sort of criminal abuse of children by someone in the Church, contact law enforcement. If you need help in contacting law enforcement contact our Victim’s Assistance Coordinator and she will help connect you with the best resources. If you are an adult victim of sexual abuse from childhood, we still encourage you to reach out to law enforcement first, but even if you don’t want to, please still reach out to us.
To our seminarians: If you are unchastely propositioned, abused, or threatened (no matter by whom), or if you directly witness unchaste behavior, report it to me and to the seminary rector. I will address it swiftly and vigorously. I will not stand for this in my diocese or anywhere I send men for formation. I trust that the seminaries I choose, very discriminately, to help form our men will not ignore this type of scandalous behavior, and I will continue to verify that expectation.
To our priests: Most simply, live out the promises you made on your ordination day. You are called to serve Christ’s people, beginning with praying daily the Liturgy of the Hours. This is to keep you very close to God. In addition, you promised to obey and be loyal to your bishop. In obedience, strive to live out your priesthood as a holy priest, a hard working priest, and a pure and happy priest – as Christ Himself is calling you to do. And by extension, live a chaste and celibate life so that you can completely give your life to Christ, the Church, and the people whom he has called you to serve. God will give you the graces to do so. Ask Him for the help you need daily and throughout every day. And if you are unchastely propositioned, abused, or threatened (no matter by whom), or if you directly witness unchaste behavior, report it to me. I will not stand for this in my diocese any more than in our seminaries.
To the faithful of the diocese: If you are the victim of abuse of any kind by a priest, bishop, cardinal, or any employee of the Church, bring it forward. It will be addressed quickly and justly. If you have directly witnessed sexual advances or any type of abuse, bring it forward as well. Such actions are sinful and scandalous and we cannot allow anyone to use their position or power to abuse another person. Again, in addition to injuring individuals, these actions injure the very Body of Christ, His Church.
Furthermore, I add my name to those calling for real and sustained reform in the episcopate, priesthood, our parishes, schools, universities, and seminaries that would root out and hold accountable any would-be sexual predator or accomplice;
I will hold the priests of the diocese to their promise to live a chaste and celibate life of service to you and your parish, and evidence of failure in this regard will be justly addressed;
I will likewise hold every man studying for the priesthood for our diocese accountable to living a chaste and celibate life as part of his formation for the priesthood. Failure to do so will lead to dismissal from diocesan sponsorship;
I will continue to require (with our men and our funds) that all seminaries to which we send men to study be vigilant that seminarians are protected from sexual predators and provide an atmosphere conducive to their holistic formation as holy priests, in the image of Christ;
I ask all the faithful of the diocese to assist in keeping us accountable to civil authorities, the faithful in the pews, and to God Almighty, not only to protect children and the youth from sexual predators in the Church, but our seminarians, university students, and all the faithful as well. I promise to put any victim and their sufferings before that of the personal and professional reputation of a priest, or any Church employee, guilty of abuse;
I ask everyone reading this to pray. Pray earnestly for the Church and all her ministers. Pray for our seminarians. And pray for yourselves and your families. We must all work daily on our own personal holiness and hold ourselves accountable first and, in turn, hold our brothers and sisters accountable as well, and
Finally, I ask you all to join me and the entire clergy of the Diocese of Madison in making public and private acts of reparation to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus and to the Immaculate Heart of Mary for all the sins of sexual depravity committed by members of the clergy and episcopacy. I will be offering a public Mass of reparation on Friday, September 14, the Feast of the Triumph of the Holy Cross, at Holy Name Heights and I ask all pastors to do the same in their own parishes. In addition, I ask that all priests, clergy, religious, and diocesan employees join me in observing the upcoming Autumn Ember Days (Sep. 19, 21, and 22) as days of fasting and abstinence in reparation for the sins and outrages committed by members of the clergy and episcopacy and I invite all the faithful to do the same. Some sins, like some demons, can only be driven out by prayer and fasting.
This letter and these statements and promises are not intended to be an exhaustive list of what we can and need to do in the Church to begin to heal from, and stave off, this deep illness in the Church, but rather the next steps I believe we can take locally.
More than anything else, we as a Church must cease our acceptance of sin and evil. We must cast out sin from our own lives and run toward holiness. We must refuse to be silent in the face of sin and evil in our families and communities and we must demand from our pastors – myself included – that they themselves are striving day in and day out for holiness. We must do this always with loving respect for individuals but with a clear understanding that true love can never exist without truth.
Again, right now there is a lot of justified anger and passion coming from many holy and faithful lay people and clerics across the country, calling for real reform and “house cleaning” of this type of depravity. I stand with them. I don’t know yet how this will play out nationally or internationally. But I do know this, and I make this my last point and last promise, for the Diocese of Madison: “As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”
Bishop Robert Morlino