A Catholic White Paper, April 20, 2002
A Catholic Church Justice Reform Initiative for a Time of Crisis
Administering Biblical Justice with Internet Technology
Educating God's Army of Peacemakers—Laity—with Internet Video
(CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD a version formatted for MS Word '97)
I. Initiating Catholic Church and family justice reform with Internet technology
A. Enlisting Catholic law professors to demand the end of no-fault divorce fraud
B. Reclaiming jurisdiction over Catholic marriages—our domestic mini-churches
C. Restoring Catholic families: voiding divorces and reinstating marriages
D. Designing Church procedures for a biblical justice system on the Internet
E. Educating Church leaders & Laity on biblical justice via Internet video
II. Damming the river from divorce to promiscuity to contraception to abortion
III. Ending abortion with civil—not criminal remedies; peace—not police
IV. Mobilizing Catholics in unprecedented numbers to serve God and humankind
The several crises concerning the Catholic Church in today's America are but symptoms of a deeper problem—failed justice, and justice is the common solution—peacemaking—to prevent—and to redress—divorce, abortion, and abuse of all kinds.
The Catholic Church has unique moral, political, and legal power to administer justice inside and outside the Church. Our crises have suddenly opened a path to educate all the Church on biblical justice by Internet video at Church and home facilities—to prepare for the times to come.
The ideal starting point for justice reform was given by Pope John Paul II in his speech to the Roman Rota on 1/28/02 [fn1] when he declared that lawyers should oppose one of the worst injustices—divorce, which is the root cause of abortion and many other evils.
The pope's directive miraculously coincides with recent legal research uncovering fraud in the "no-fault" divorce laws in America. Virtually all American divorces can be pronounced void. Subsequent remarriages are therefore invalid. All American marriages must be reviewed and then confirmed or annulled.
When this stunning legal research becomes known to the public, it will consume the Church and the national agenda for months, as it did for Israel in the biblical text of Ezra, chapters 9 and 10—the biblical precedent for mass annulment of illegal marriages. Yet it will begin a time of great family healing.
To manage the social distress, Church leaders must enlist professional help—the foremost lawyers—Catholic law professors. The law professors must first explain to the U.S. Supreme Court what has happened in American law, that jurisdiction over marriage and divorce must be returned to the Church. Then the law professors must assist Church administrators, lawyers, theologians, librarians, computer technicians, and other Laity to create an Internet-based Church justice system—to resolve marital disputes and other Church controversies without intervention by civil courts.
"Bishop Gregory said the US bishops will come up with new policies to deal with allegations of abuse."[fn2] Catholic Laity can be schooled by Internet video at home and Church facilities to settle peaceably all allegations of wrongdoing in the Church and its families. Not everyone will become a champion law professor, but the book of Proverbs suggests that the bishops' new policy ought to promote justice as the foremost sport among Catholics. Catholic colleges have football teams, and people attend their games. Where are the Catholic justice contests, and who attends them?
In summary, our underlying problem in the American Catholic Church is failed justice which has spawned multiple crises of injustice. The Catholic Church can solve the problem by initiating justice reform—by taking control of its marriages and training Catholics to apply the tenets of biblical justice throughout the Church and the world.
The popes have understood and explained the divorce problem and the marriage
solution, partly in the 19th Century, then partly again in the
20th Century. The same has been done by the U.S. Supreme Court—partly
explaining American law in the 19th Century, partly again explaining
in the 20th Century.
In the 21st Century, we are ready to complete the solution in American law—secular law and secular courts have no legal authority to decide whether "faith-based marriage" disputes are sufficient to grant a divorce.
This is not to say that civil government cannot regulate the conduct of spouses. The civil state is duty-bound to protect its citizens from abuse or injury. That is where the state's authority ends, however—with the spouses' behavior. Secular courts have no jurisdiction over a faith-based marriage relation, or a divorce decision, except to record them in public records.
The Catholic Church must enlist Catholic law professors to consolidate spiritual and secular teachings on marital relations and present them to the U.S. Supreme Court. The work must be done by lawyers, the doctors of legal relations, and law professors are the top surgeons. A petition by Catholic law professors will be permitted a full hearing in the U.S. Supreme Court, and they will not be refuted.
The rule of law is simple—faith-based marriage is indissoluble. But exceptions to this rule are not simple. The exceptions are easily abused unless they are granted with great reluctance by Church authorities. Pope John Paul II advised the legal profession who administers the difficult legal task of divorce[fn3]:
"Lawyers, as independent professionals, should always decline the use of their profession for an end that is contrary to justice, as is divorce. They can only cooperate in this kind of activity when, in the intention of the client, it is not directed to the break-up of the marriage, but to the securing of other legitimate effects that can only be obtained through such a judicial process in the established legal order (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 2383)."
American divorce courts reverse the rule of law—every divorce is an "exception." The Church is not consulted. The courts lend their entire power to the spouse who asks to break up a marriage. Court officers—lawyers—advise spouses in secret on secular methods to betray solemn religious obligations. The officers then write court orders that separate the spouses, strangle their communications, and force the marital property to be used as wages for the officers who orchestrate the destruction.
One spouse's consent to the divorce is all that is necessary. Any spouse who is unwillingly forced into divorce court is in the same position as an unborn child whose mother has decided to have an abortion. Neither has any voice or any choice. Our culture encourages abortion as a solution to an unplanned pregnancy, and so divorce is encouraged as a solution to problems in marriage.
Moreover, to aggravate the outrage and the injustice, "no-fault" divorce laws were fraudulently distorted 30 years ago, by legal linguistics—by a twist of language by divorce lawyers, for their profit. It still goes on today.
30 years ago, "fault" in the marital home context meant "wrongdoing." However, in the divorce context, "fault" also meant "fight." "Fault" meant an innocent spouse accusing a guilty spouse in a divorce court fight, and the shorthand "no-fault" meant "no-fight," or "uncontested." So no-fault divorce simply meant uncontested divorce, where spouses and their churches would set their own grounds for divorce and the court would simply record the decisions without requiring any court fight—as they would record a common land transaction.
However, as the no-fault law was implemented, the divorce lawyers who were paid from divorce decrees insisted that no-fault divorce meant that no fault (no wrongdoing) was to be proved. There was no fault in dispute, so no fight was allowed. They shifted the definition of "fault" in the argument. The clever verbal misconstruction demolished the contractual and binding nature of marital vows. It is nothing short of fraud that has deprived all Catholics of the right to indissolubility which is a fundamental characteristic of the sacrament of Holy Matrimony.
Many people have attacked the no-fault divorce laws, but unsuccessfully, because the Divorce Industry is immensely profitable, and forcing the divorce is necessary to divide the marital property and pay the lawyers and support staff. There can be only one solution—prevent state control of faith-based marriages. Each parish should secure its marriages as each diocese protects its parishes.
The Catholic law professors have a daunting task. Their opponent is a multi-billion dollar Divorce Industry with thousands of wealthy lawyers who operate unlawfully—and who know it, and who know how to hide it, and who are entrenched in an immoral culture.
The entire Catholic Church should unite behind Catholic law professors to defeat this enemy who utterly denies our right to worship God through the sacred and good and necessary sacrament of Holy Matrimony which was given to humankind for its welfare and blessing.
After Americans were freed from state-legislated slavery in 1865, by the 13th Amendment, our faith-based marriages should have been freed from state-legislated divorce in 1868, by the 14th Amendment, but they were not.
When America was founded, the Bill of Rights restricted the federal government but not the states to legislate matters of religious and personal liberties. States could legislate slavery, and they could also lawfully invade religious institutions, such as faith-based marriage, by divorce. That was American law before the postwar 13th and 14th Amendments were enacted in the 1860's.
The 14th Amendment limits states' rights to invade religious institutions in the same way that federal rights were limited [see link]. State laws allowing slavery were abolished. However, no one abolished illegal state divorce laws for faith-based marriage, which is a small church in its own right, a mini-church—a "domestic church," as Pope John Paul II termed it [fn4], and therefore faith-based marriage is subject to 14th Amendment protections for churches. Pope John Paul II said:
"This truth about the indissolubility of marriage, like the entire Christian message, is addressed to the men and women of every time and place. In order to make that a reality, testimony to that truth must be given by the Church and, in particular, by individual families as "domestic Churches" in which husband and wife recognize that they are bound to each other forever by a bond that demands a love that is ever renewed, generous and ready for sacrifice." [fn5]
Pope Leo XIII in an 1880 encyclical said about divorces, "it is plainly absurd to maintain that even the very smallest fraction of such power has been transferred to the civil ruler." But in those days, divorce was rare, and there was no widely available technology for abortion. No one properly presented proof that Pope Leo XIII was correct under American law. Eight years later, in 1888, when the U.S. Supreme Court considered the issue of divorce in Maynard v. Hill [fn6], the 14th Amendment was never even mentioned.
So the popes' contentions have never been consolidated with American law for a scholarly presentation which has been heard by the U.S. Supreme Court. That challenge can no longer wait. The destructiveness of divorce and abortion to our society has grown too severe from the past 30 years that we have suffered under "no-fault" divorce laws.
Our U.S. Constitution's First Amendment plus 14th Amendment demand that church disputes be removed from the civil jurisdiction, regardless of the church size, and a faith-based marriage is a "domestic" mini-church of at least husband and wife. Faith-based marital disputes must be removed from secular court jurisdiction, and into the protection of the Church, where those disputes will be resolved without divorce.
As Catholic law professors develop their legal presentation, they must also clarify the terminology to distinguish the legal prerogatives belonging only to faith-based marriage, because the term "marriage" has been used in recent times for every relationship from "registered cohabitation" to homosexual union. In his 1880 encyclical [fn7], Pope Leo XIII clarified his terminology by speaking of "Christian marriage," or "marriages of Christians:"
"19. Marriage has God for its Author . . . . is holy by its own power, in its own nature, and of itself, it ought not to be regulated and administered by the will of civil rulers, but by the divine authority of the Church. . .
20. Next, the dignity of the sacrament must be considered, . . . it is plainly absurd to maintain that even the very smallest fraction of such power has been transferred to the civil ruler. …
23. Let no one, then, be deceived by the distinction which some civil jurists have so strongly insisted upon-the distinction, namely, by virtue of which they sever the matrimonial contract from the sacrament, with intent to hand over the contract to the power and will of the rulers of the State. . . A distinction, or rather severance, of this kind cannot be approved; for certain it is that in Christian marriage the contract is inseparable from the sacrament, and that, for this reason, the contract cannot be true and legitimate without being a sacrament as well. For Christ our Lord added to marriage the dignity of a sacrament; but marriage is the contract itself, whenever that contract is lawfully concluded.
24. Neither, therefore, by reasoning can it be shown, nor by any testimony of history be proved, that power over the marriages of Christians has ever lawfully been handed over to the rulers of the State. [fn8]"
Terminology was clarified again to the Roman Rota this January, 2002, when Pope John Paul II directed lawyers to oppose divorce. He asked for a legal initiative to establish the true character and attributes of marriage, so it can be expressed precisely by our civil courts in their legal terminology. He qualified the term "marriage" as "indissoluble marriage" and "true marriage" as follows [fn9]:
"Among the initiatives should be those that aim at obtaining the public recognition of indissoluble marriage in the civil juridical order … Resolute opposition to any legal or administrative measures that introduce divorce … must be accompanied by a pro-active attitude, acting through juridical provisions that tend to improve the social recognition of true marriage in the framework of legal orders that unfortunately admit divorce."
Both popes have distinguished true marriage, which is always the faith-based institution authored by God. Nonetheless, some of America's unbelievers wish to subject themselves and their children to the penalties of non-faith-based conjugal relations and promiscuity of all kinds—and still call it "marriage." Under American law, at this time, the Catholic Church must allow them their freedom to suffer the consequences of their error. At best, we can only separate our own marriages by careful distinction in our words.
If American unbelievers want to call their ungodly relationships, "marriage," then we must find another term, such as "faith-based marriage," so that we can keep true marriage—as we know it, as the Bible explains it, as the popes have taught it—sacred—holy—set apart from civil court interference. We must jealously define and guard our legal terminology to prevent encroachment by civil authority into our matters of faith.
Those who argue for "covenant marriage" legislation have the right idea about terminology, but the legislation is unnecessary. Every true marriage, every faith-based marriage, is a covenant marriage, and in America, the rights to a faith-based marriage are already guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution's protections, because faith-based marriage is a domestic church. The rights of churches must be defended in the courts when those rights are violated, and not in the legislatures.
Our popes have reaffirmed what has been taught for generations. Now it is the responsibility of Church leaders to take action. This means enlisting and supporting Catholic law professors to challenge and expose the no-fault divorce fraud in the legal system, and to demand that our divorce decisions be moved from civil court jurisdiction into Church jurisdiction.
Because secular courts have decreed divorces without jurisdiction, and by fraud, virtually all American divorces could be pronounced void. Not only are the divorce decrees void—but also void are child custody orders, child support orders, and spousal support orders. Moreover, when a divorce is void, the original marriage is legally reinstated, and remarriages then become bigamous and void.
The Church must begin restoration of its own irrevocable Catholic marriages, and annulment of other marriages that were wrongly contracted. It is an immense legal project that must be analyzed thoroughly by Catholic law professors—unparalleled in world history. The legal problems did not happen overnight, and they cannot be corrected overnight. For example, real estate deeds will change for people who thought they were divorced but are still married.
The consequence will be a massive rearrangement of American families—with a biblical precedent in Israel, in Ezra Chapters 9 and 10, where there was a mass change in marital status, child custody, and property rights, and, "…the people wept bitterly." Ezra 10:1. Virtually every divorce in this country, at least over the past 30 years, should be confirmed or voided, to restore family stability.
The outrage will shake the nation and the world. Many divorces and remarriages will be left intact—but possibly many millions will be voided. The power of the destructive secular family courts will be shattered. Those courts will be relegated primarily to ministerial recording of family matters. They will become paper pushers who handle no family money.
Meanwhile, outside the Catholic Church, faith-based marital disputes for other Christian denominations will be resolved almost exclusively by their own churches or the private sector, by individuals and non-government authorities of the spouses' own mutual choosing. People will set their own grounds for marriage and divorce and employ secular courts only as they and their churches agree.
The real Church will prove that it is the real Church, because its marriages will last. The lost sheep will know where their real home is, because they will see the healthy examples. The Church's legal practice will become the "science of legal relationship technology," teaching not to seek after judgments but after justice—to leave people at peace with one another—to "ensure the domestic tranquility" and "secure the blessings of liberty."
The Church will hasten to remind the world that this "new science" of human relations was originally outlined by Moses and refined by Christ, thousands of years ago. Christ's power to unite humanity will not just be preached but demonstrated.
The unfortunate women who consider abortions will be fewer in number and will find more places of refuge.
The Church's justice system has been outgrown by today's Church. To deliver justice in the Church today, the Church must change its ways—its procedures—and change them dramatically to cope with the dramatic increase in population of the earth and the Church.
At the same time, computer technology has changed legal economics by many orders of magnitude, in ways never dreamed of. It costs less than a dollar to store an entire day's audio testimony on the Internet, so we could afford to resolve Church disputes in our own "courts of record." Computers can also bring into everyone's home the scriptures, the Catechism, and the encyclicals—all in our native language, and with high-speed word searching.
Yet despite our wealth of truth, we have not learned how to apply it to obtain justice between our own people. "Justice, justice, shall you pursue, that you may thrive..." Deut. 16:20. We do not thrive because our own wrongdoing goes unredressed—husband to wife, priest to parishioner, family to family, brother to brother.
We have sacred methods of peacemaking given to us by God through the scriptures to teach the Church, and these methods must be taught anew for today's Church. Peacemaking was exemplified by Jesus Christ, and it has been interpreted for our own times through the admonitions of our popes and other great Church leaders.
Christians are gentle and forgiving out of reverence for Christ and not for want of strength. We encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, but admonish the unruly (1 Thess. 5:14). We overlook transgressions when we can (Prov. 19:11), but when we cannot, we first get the log out of our own eye (Matt. 7:5), and we go a second mile when we are asked to go only one (Matt. 5:41).
When our neighbor complains about us, we drop our gift at the altar, and first go to be reconciled (Matt. 5:23,24). But if we complain about another, we go one-on-one, quietly, to show the fault and win our brother back without harming a reputation by spreading gossip (Matt. 18: 15). If that does not bring peace, we take one or two others along (Matt. 18:16), and after that, if necessary, we publicize it to the Church (Matt. 18:17). Only after that do we go to a court of law, as a last resort, and yet we seek to settle along the way (Matt. 5:25) or even rather be wronged (1 Cor. 6:7).
These are all subjects of biblical legal procedure, given to us by God for justice—for peacemaking. We cannot enjoy their blessings unless they are taught and practiced.
True biblical justice starts its process of repairing broken relationships by teaching how to make clear allegations without minimizing or exaggerating, forming claims that can be adjudicated, and making sure those claims are heard completely and fairly. How many Catholics are trained as children to understand the ordinary legal process of pleading an honest complaint in terms of God's law from the scripture, or from the Catechism, or from other Church tradition? It was harsh criticism when Jesus said, "you…have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice…" Matt. 23:23.
Jewish youths learn to recite principles of law from their childhood from the Talmud and Mishnah. They exercise those skills over years and their advantage is evident when they speak in the courts. Also, a visit to a Messianic Jewish Synagogue where they praise the name of Yeshua HaMashiach will find even the Laity joking constantly in reference to Torah characters and principles and stories in their private conversations. They have steeped themselves in that heritage. Catholics can emulate those enthusiasms and the training that builds them.
Moses said about God's laws, "…and you shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up." (Deut. 6:7). Jesus in Matthew 4 three times defeated Satan's misuse of the scripture by quoting Deuteronomy. God's law was always ready on His lips.
Moses said that if Israel would follow God's laws, "that is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes and say, 'Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.'" (Deut. 4:6). Those godless nations were destroying themselves by burning their children in fire—just as America aborts its children. Meanwhile, because Israel had God's law, they were being taught to treasure all human life—to "love your neighbor as yourself" (Lev. 19:17), and to deal justly without favoritism or any form of bribery or unjust influence (Ex. 23:1-9).
Godly ways—good procedures—must be established in the Church to process allegations of every manner of wrongdoing that is not right in God's sight. We learn from Achan in Joshua 7:13 that God's entire community suffers defeat when there is sin in the camp. We learn from Hebrews 12:6-14 that beloved children are disciplined, that it is for their own good, and that if the correction is not administered, they are illegitimate children.
In Exodus 20, the same list of commandments that prohibits murder, theft, and adultery, also prohibits false witness. Therefore, even allegations that are totally groundless must also be examined seriously. If an allegation is true, then sin is in the camp—or it is false, and sin is in the camp. No allegation of wrongdoing can be ignored.
When allegations are false, Catholics must be taught not to slander others or gossip. They should fear punishment for hurling harmful words carelessly. They must learn from Matthew 18 to go to each other quietly, or with a small entourage, so guilt will not be charged publicly until guilt is proved or until refusal to cooperate warrants the matter to be made public. We punish theft, we punish murder, and we must punish false witness—if we are to administer biblical justice—if we are to administer the Father's discipline to one another, as born-again siblings, as children of the Most High, and not illegitimate.
Catholics should know that the mere mention of wrongdoing starts a biblical justice process in the Church which does not stop until it is reconciled and the truth is known. "Hear out your fellow man, and decide justly between any man and a fellow Israelite or a stranger. You shall not be partial in judgment: hear out low and high alike. Fear no man, for judgment is God's." (Deut. 1:16-17). Hearing and deciding fairly even the most frivolous complaints are a necessary learning experience, as we police ourselves, so that we can be most fit to serve one another in God's ways, and not in the ways of those around us in America who are taught from commercial TV. They learn to practice evil of all types, and they pay the penalty.
The Catholic Church is now a billion strong—a thousand-fold larger than the Israel for which Moses' law was given. Today, when we consider these biblical mandates, the new proportions of humanity must be taken into account.
When Israel's population was on the order of a million, Moses appointed capable Laity in Exodus 18 as dispute-resolvers—peacemakers—over the thousands, and the hundreds, and the fifties, and the tens. It added up to 131 people per thousand, to be trained in the ways of peacemaking—about one in every eight people. By today's American standards, inside the Church and out, it made for unbelievably intense dedication to peacemaking between neighbors.
So when Moses led Israel, every eighth tent had an official peacemaker, and justice was close to everyone. Every complaint could get attention quickly, and Moses himself was only four steps of appeal away. Should not Catholics be taught how they can proceed on appeal all the way to the pope? Would that not challenge the ingenuity of all tribunals along the way to bring peace among brothers, to shield the Vatican from wasted time through failed procedures? Could not insurance be provided to settle the difficult cases where fault is not clear, or both sides have been injured, as in automobile accidents? As a citizen of Rome, Paul the Apostle was granted an appeal to Caesar. Can Catholics offer less?
The Church crises have shown the need to begin development and training for an effective Church justice system. As Moses was told in Exodus 18:20, "…teach them the statutes and the laws, and make known to them the way in which they are to walk, and the work they are to do."
Following the same proportion as used for peacemakers in Israel under Moses—one out of eight—today the Catholic Church would need over 100 million Laity. Perhaps computers and Internet video home-schooling could reduce the work 10-fold or 100-fold. Possibly Church justice can be managed well with one million serving in Laity.
There is no way to add the day-to-day chores of a working Church justice system to the workload of today's priesthood. The first foot soldiers must be today's Laity, and the next generation of laborers will be ready to complete the house, as David secured the land, and afterwards Solomon completed the temple.
Computer recording on multi-media makes some clerical jobs much cheaper, such as recording, copying, and delivery costs. Although computers will help us, they are no cure-all by themselves. Judicial administration is the far greater effort.
Airplanes were flown nearly a century ago, on December 17, 1903, at Kitty Hawk, but intercontinental air travel was not routine for decades. Any practical Catholic justice system will rely heavily on horse and buggy for quite a while. Catholic lawyers can build a justice system on the techniques they know today, computers or not. We must start where we are.
To proliferate a Church justice system, Church-based Internet transmission can bring the world's best teachers and teaching immediately to Church facilities and homes. The Church already has web TV transmission facilities on which it can build.
For 50 years American eyes have been filled with TV's commercial programming, with images designed to sell ads by exploiting sensuality. But with today’s Internet video, Church programming can be custom-designed to restore godly and edifying imagery to Catholic homes.
When individual or class coaching is needed, distinguished experts can be made available by "web cams" and two-way video links—whether they reside in the same community as the students or across the world. The participants—students and teachers—can be projected in video frames on screens or walls in churches, and the same class sessions can include individuals and groups networked from their homes.
There is need for Catholic-designed schooling beyond the immediate justice crisis. Humankind’s knowledge is being poured into Internet storage. Why should Catholics not search out and organize our own collections from the purest of the pure, and share it with the eyes and ears of other Catholics, children and adults alike? Our Catholic community is being built by our shared communication.
Catholics everywhere can and should be trained in the scriptures and Catechism through complete pastoral libraries, copied from the Internet to local computers for pennies. Today, any high school graduate with basic Bible training and high-speed computers can search out answers in minutes that formerly would take scholars days of research.
Why should Catholic children not be separated from any school environment that legislates prayer and the name of God out of its curriculum? Why should our children be herded into large assemblies where they are victimized not only by intellectual terrorists but now also by terrorists armed with chemical and biological weapons?
With Internet distribution of video, audio, and text, Catholics can prepare the very best of the best and make it available across the nation in home-schooling and parish-schooling curricula. The Church can extend its effort to translate the truth into many different languages and equip our missionaries with computers and remote Internet links.
Professionals can now inexpensively prepare persuasive video presentations with pictures that educate instantly. The hardest hearts can be broken to tears with videos like the sixty-four second video clip entitled "Second Thoughts," about the lost dreams of a young woman who went through abortion. That video was recently on display at http://www.shakethenation.org, "Shake the Nation Back to Life."
The Church can enlist its professional educators, illustrators, media specialists, news writers, librarians, theologians, and computer experts, to educate all of us. We can teach not only biblical justice, but also other wholesome and necessary subjects, making the best use of advancing technology and falling prices.
II. Damming the river from divorce to promiscuity to contraception to abortion
Divorce causes abortion. If arsonists were paid for burning homes, would we challenge the fire-fighting laws? It is the divorce laws that must be corrected to end the abortion plague, not the abortion laws. Our legal initiatives have attacked the symptom and not the cause. The dam will sooner be built upstream than at the river delta.
Roe v. Wade [fn10] has withstood a quarter century of frontal assault. "Yet the federal law on abortion has changed very little. Roe v. Wade continues to make impossible any meaningful protection for the lives of human beings from the time they are conceived until after they are fully born"—to quote the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops statement on 11/14/01 [fn11].
The popes have explained how abortions originate in the divorce courts:
"In 1880, Pope Leo XIII promulgated Arcanum [fn12] (Hidden Design of God. The documents written in Latin are usually titled by the first words of the statement). He warns against the easing of divorce in all of the world's societies. The teaching from 120 years ago set up the slippery slope: Easy divorce leads to destruction of family and character; destruction of family and character lead to free sexual pleasure with contraception; contraception leads to abortion; abortion to the destruction of society and human character and the perversion of one's sexuality. He reaffirms the sacredness of marriage. He lists the consequences of divorce on the person, the family, children, and society.... [fn13]"
Pope John Paul II's speech to the Roman Rota [fn14] is fairly construed as a call for Catholic law professors to dismantle the Abortion Industry's supply line—the multi-billion dollar Divorce Industry. It is now the responsibility of Church leaders to enlist those professors and support them in a practical initiative that will accomplish the goal.
III. Ending abortion with civil—not criminal remedies; peace—not police
We are now experiencing the full backlash from two centuries of legal error. When America was founded, divorce grounds were legislated state-by-state by the influence of the strongest religious denominations.
Now in return, the unbelievers have attained power and imposed their no-fault divorce fraud on everyone, including the Catholic Church.
At this time, it will be a victory for us to separate our own marriages from their jurisdiction, and to leave them with their own errors. It will be a miracle enough to walk our own marriages through the Red Sea and out of their Egypt.
When Christ faced government evil, He could have ordered legions of warring angels to take power, to seat Him in the chair of civil authority. Instead, He allowed the wrong to go on, waiting for the power of Pentecost—for a Spirit to do a work in humankind. Christ used "peace—not police" to begin the process of redeeming the country from its immorality. God's plan was not to grant redemption all at once.
We have not succeeded to impose criminal penalties against abortion. However, even if we succeeded, would not a mob racket move in just as it did with alcohol during America's Prohibition era? All we proved with a constitutional amendment during Prohibition is how easy it is to corrupt government when there is a strong demand for immorality. We also have criminal statutes in the war against drugs. The result is not less drugs but more prisons.
Criminal law is not the answer to our abortion problem. We can fight the demand for abortion by conquering the Divorce Industry, to build strong homes. After that we can seek remedies against abortion case-by-case in the civil courts instead of criminal courts.
We rightly contend that abortion is morally wrong, as is adultery. Christ likewise told the adulterous woman not to sin any more, but when He confirmed the moral truth, He did not demand a criminal penalty. His policy was "peace—not police."
In God's law for Israel, the remedy for loss of the unborn was also "peace—not police." In Ex. 21:22, when a baby was aborted through a reckless assault, it was homicide but not criminal homicide. It was just as much a loss then as today, but it was a civil court matter, not criminal. Likewise, we can and should oppose abortion—with government force—but civil force, not criminal force.
Civil lawsuits have already begun against abortion, even class action lawsuits. By encouraging civil lawsuits, the Church can become a powerful deterrent—first to those who assist divorces—and also to those who participate in abortions.
Our Church initiative against abortion should target the source of abortion—the Divorce Industry, and meanwhile, we should explore civil remedies against abortion.
IV. Mobilizing Catholics in unprecedented numbers to serve God and humankind
Catholic Church leaders have the power to become America's heroes—by ending the abortion plague at its source—quickly and peaceably—by enlisting Catholic law professors for the legal battle against divorce.
In a matter of months our Catholic law professors can dismantle the "no-fault" divorce machine. Afterwards, when we begin to resolve marital disputes and divorce injustices in Church families, everyone will rise to follow the Catholic Church in a massive family reconstruction.
The Bishops and priests cannot solve today's problems by themselves. Today's needs are not just theology or shepherding but law and technology. God has just shown the Catholic Church its own problems so it can change its internal justice systems.
The world is coming into tribulation. It is time to train the Laity, and to dedicate the Church to justice as never before. Our time is short, and the entire Church needs dramatic change to face the times—quickly—like the change Jonah obtained in Ninevah, when fraud was rampant in the land.
By Moses' standards, the Church would have 100 million peacemakers, but possibly one percent will do the job with computers and Internet video. Catholic peacemakers will be able to rise in strength to serve God from strong homes with strong marriages—when Church leaders, in God's name, for God's glory, challenge the overwhelming power of the Goliath Divorce Industry which—to this day—has been allowed to destroy Church homes—"domestic churches"—marriage-by-marriage.
Just as Gideon enlisted only 300 in Judges chapters 6 through 8, a very small group of carefully selected legal warriors—Catholic law professors—can put the Divorce Industry to flight—if they blow the trumpet and shine the light. After the enemy is put to flight, then Church Laity will rise to complete the triumph by building a "culture of life."
April 20, 2002
Edward Truncellito, JD
20180 Ponde Lane
FOOTNOTES:
fn1 Address of John Paul II to the Prelate Auditors, officials and advocates of the Tribunal of the Roman ROTA (Monday, January 28, 2002), available on the Internet via http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/speeches/2002/january/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_20020128_roman-rota_en.html
fn2 ROME, Apr 12, 02 (CWNews.com), available on the Internet via http://www.spiritdaily.com/popehelp.htm
fn3 Address of John Paul II to the Prelate Auditors, officials and advocates of the Tribunal of the Roman ROTA (Monday, January 28, 2002), available on the Internet via http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/speeches/2002/january/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_20020128_roman-rota_en.html
fn4 Address of John Paul II to the Prelate Auditors, officials and advocates of the Tribunal of the Roman ROTA (Monday, January 28, 2002), available on the Internet via http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/speeches/2002/january/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_20020128_roman-rota_en.html
fn5 Address of John Paul II to the Prelate Auditors, officials and advocates of the Tribunal of the Roman ROTA (Monday, January 28, 2002), available on the Internet via http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/speeches/2002/january/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_20020128_roman-rota_en.html
fn6 Maynard v. Hill, 125 U.S. 190 (1888) , available on the Internet via http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=us&vol=125&page=190
fn7 Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII promulgated on 10 February 1880, available on the Internet via http://www.ewtn.com/library/ENCYC/L13CMR.HTM
fn8 Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII promulgated on 10 February 1880, available on the Internet via http://www.ewtn.com/library/ENCYC/L13CMR.HTM
fn9 Address of John Paul II to the Prelate Auditors, officials and advocates of the Tribunal of the Roman ROTA (Monday, January 28, 2002), available on the Internet via http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/speeches/2002/january/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_20020128_roman-rota_en.html
fn10 Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), available on the Internet at http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=410&invol=113
fn11 "Bishops Adopt Revised Plan for Pro-Life Activities," 11/14/2001, Office of Communications, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 3211 4th Street, N.E., Washington, DC 20017-1194, (202) 541-3000, available on the Internet via http://www.nccbuscc.org/comm/archives/2001/01-197.htm
fn12 Arcanum, 2/10/1880, available on the Internet via http://www.ewtn.com/library/ENCYC/L13CMR.HTM
fn13 "Priest Quotes Encyclicals to Non-Catholics," available on the Internet via http://www.sdnewsnotes.com/ed/articles/2001/0301rp.htm, quoting Father Richard Perozich - Pastor of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Catholic Church, in City Heights West, Marlborough and Orange San Diego, CA. Article from San Diego News Notes - March 2001, Contents © 2001 by Jim Holman - jholman@adnc.com
fn14 Address of John Paul II to the Prelate Auditors, officials and advocates of the Tribunal of the Roman ROTA (Monday, January 28, 2002), available on the Internet via http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/speeches/2002/january/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_20020128_roman-rota_en.html