DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF ST. JOHN, ARCHBISHOP OF SHANGHAI AND SAN
FRANCISCO
ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN WITNESS (USPS 412-260)
is published monthly by St. Nectarios American Orthodox Cathedral,
10300 Ashworth Avenue North, Seattle, Washington 98133-9410.
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Fr. Neketas S. Palassis, Editor Email: frneketas@stnectariospress.com
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Fax: 206-523-0550
MAY, 2005, VOLUME XXXIX, NO. 5 (1548)
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
1. Metropolitan Moses Paschal Ecyclical
2. Supreme Court Refuses To Hear Case Against Planned Parenthood
3. Unfashionable genes
4. Is Islam Tolerant
5. BORN THAT WAY : If it comes naturally, does that mean it's not sin?
6. Though Choice
7. Canadian Senator .. Warns Colleagues Of Danger Of Hate Crimes
Bill
8. Death by 'Due Process' : Activist courts are defying, not
enforcing, the Constitution
9. Another Evolutionary Hoax Uncovered
10. Why Can't I Say My Prayers At Home?
11. New Items from the Book Center
No man has been entrusted with great things without having first
been tried in small ones.
St. Isaac the Syrian
THE PASCHAL ENCYCLICAL
of His Eminence, Metropolitan Moses of Seattle
My beloved brethren and children in Christ:
Christ is risen!
During Great and Holy Week our Priest and King, Who comes to sacrifice
Himself, declares unto us in the hymnology of the Church, I came not to
be served, but to serve and give My life as ransom for many. These
words that stir the hearts of all believers are fulfilled in deed by
the God-Man Christ. On Holy Thursday, we see our Savior demonstrate a
humility that stops the mind of men when He condescends to wash the
feet of the disciples
We see our Savior offer His Body and Blood for the establishment of the
New Testament, the sacrifice of co-suffering love, accomplishing the
union of the faithful in the New Adam that all things might be made
new. We hear our Saviors awesome promises and are overcome with wave
upon wave of awestruck wonder at out Saviors love for us.
At the matins for Holy Friday during the readings of the Twelve Gospels
we hear of our Saviors voluntary passion and suffer and are pained, yet
at the same time are struck with wonder at our Saviors love for us.
Finally, our Savior tastes of vinegar and gall and pronounces the words
It is finished. For the whole night long we have before us the great
mystery of the Cross, how Christ our Love was crucified for our love,
that we might be awakened from the stupor of sin and respond to His
self-sacrificing love.
We come, on the evening of Great and Holy Friday, to the Laudations or
Lamentations and the canon chanted in Matins for Holy Saturday when we
cherish our Saviors struggle for us and at the same time begin to
rejoice in expectation of His glorious Resurrection. Would that somehow
time could stand still that we could savor this mystery longer and
drink the draught of this joy-making mourning, this sorrow that is
filled with wonder and the sure hope of the Resurrection.
Then we find ourselves standing at the service of the Paschal Matins
that dawns forth the Day Spring from on high in the midst of the night
when we are all called upon to Receive light from the Unwaning Light.
We hear the Gospel reading and then Christ is risen is chanted for the
first time and our hearts are pierced with joy. The Paschal canon is
chanted and joy is added to joy. We celebrate our Pascha, Christ the
Redeemer, and in Him pass over from death unto life and from earth unto
heaven. Now are all things filled with Light, We celebrate the death of
death, the destruction of Hades, the beginning of an everlasting life.
And with leaps of joy we bless the cause thereof, the only blest and
most glorious God of our Fathers.
In the midst of this joy, let us pay careful heed to the Gospel
selection chosen by the Holy Fathers for this feast of feasts. The
first Chapter of the Gospel of Saint John is read wherein our Saviors
divinity is clearly proclaimed.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word
was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made
by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made. In Him
was life; and the life was the light of men. (John 1:1-4)
I would like to draw your attention to the section of this reading from
the Gospel that has as its subject the ever present condition of the
race of men, i.e., the promise of God to the sons and daughters of Adam
and the choice that lies before us all from generation to generation:
And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not
That was the true Light, which enlighteneth every man that cometh into
the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and
the world knew Him not. He came unto His own, and His own received Him
not. But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become
children of God, even to them that believe in His name: Which were
born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of
man, but of God. (John 1:5,9-13)
Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us give thanks to God that we have
been able once again to celebrate and experience the Mystery of our
salvation. Let us rejoice, let us be glad, yet, in this age of
confusion, let us never be confused. In order to be partakers of the
New and Holy Pascha, we must hold precious the New Testament, the
Covenant of Christ the God-Man. It is only by embracing the teachings
of the Church that have been given unto us by the Holy Apostles and
through union with Christ in Holy Baptism and the Holy Eucharist that
we pass over from death unto life. These life-giving teachings are not
difficult to understand, but in this age of compromise and error many
false shepherds have arisen. In our day one can say that the witness
and teachings of our Savior are a light unto men, but the darkness of
ecumenism comprehends it not. We pray for the erring, but we flee from
the darkness.
On this day, let us pass over from the things of the old man to the
things of the New Adam. This is the day which the Lord hath made; let
us rejoice and be glad therein. The Timeless Light has dawned from the
grave. Let us receive Him that we be born of God and accounted children
of God, in Christ Jesus our Priest and King, to Whom be glory, honor
and dominion with the Father and the Holy Spirit
Christ, is risen! Truly He is risen!
Your fervent suppliant in Christ,
+Moses, Metropolitan of
Seattle
Pascha, 2005 Protocol Number 105S
2. Supreme Court Refuses To Hear Case Against Planned Parenthood
(The Wanderer, October 28, 2004)
The U.S. Supreme Court denied the request of three plaintiffs to
hear their case against Planned Parenthood.
The women accuse Planned Parenthood of refusing to educate women about
the link between abortion and breast cancer.
The original lawsuit was launched in August 2001, by Agnes Bernardo of
Chula Vista, Pamela Colip of Loma Linda, and Sandra Duffy-Hawkins of
Sacramento. The women wanted Planned Parenthood to begin providing
women with accurate information about the overwhelming evidence that
abortion raises breast cancer risk; they were not suing for monetary
damages.
The Supreme Court dismissed the case, upholding an earlier decision by
the California Supreme Court, while ordering the women to pay legal
fees in excess of $77,000.
"Twenty-eight out of 37 studies published since 1957 have associated
this elective surgical procedure with breast cancer," Karen Malec,
president of the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer, said, following
the launch of the suit in 2001.
"Women have a right to make fully informed decisions concerning their
own health. If women are denied crucial information about the risks of
a procedure, can it really be said that a choice ever belonged to them?
"Accurate information about the research has been censored by Planned
Parenthood and its supporters since abortion was legalized in the U.S.
nearly three decades ago," Malec charged. "It was censored by the same
people who ardently professed that they cared about women's health.
Planned Parenthood's greed will cost women their lives and devastate
families: This is a travesty of justice."
3 Unfashionable genes
By Mark Bergin
[World, October 9, 2004]
Darwinists lash out as ID scientist makes an important inroad
Last month the Intelligent Design (ID) team pushed a run across the
plate, and its Darwinist opponents promptly promised not to let it
happen again.
The ID breakthrough came when a paper titled The Origin of Biological
Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories" by Stephen Meyer
appeared in Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. A
peer-reviewed journal, Proceedings only prints articles approved by
scientists at mainstream institutions - and until now the Darwinian
establishment has excluded from such journals all ID articles.
Mr. Meyer, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute in Seattle,
argues in the paper that Darwinian mechanisms cannot explain the
production of new information needed for novel genes and proposes ID as
a better explanation. The ID movement already has produced
peer-reviewed books: William Dembski's The Design Inference and Michael
Behe's Darwin's Black Box. But publication of Mr. Meyer's paper means
that Darwinians will no longer be able to dismiss the ID movement by
saying that such articles cannot pass muster.
Darwinists reacted to the publication quickly and harshly. The
Biological Society of Washington (BSW) called it "a significant
departure from the nearly purely taxonomic content for which this
journal has been known throughout its 124-year history. It was
published without the prior knowledge of the council." BSW called the
paper "inappropriate for the pages of the Proceedings" and promised the
topic of design "will not be addressed in future issues."
Proceedings published Mr. Meyer's article with the approval of former
editor Richard Sternberg, who resigned for unrelated reasons in October
2003 but continued to serve until a new editor was selected in May
2004. Mr. Sternberg insists he followed the standard peer-review
process, submitting Mr. Meyer's paper for examination to three
qualified evolutionary and molecular biologists teaching at well-known
institutions. Mr. Meyer confirms that he revised his original paper
based on recommendations from the three peer reviewers.
Darwinians have lambasted Mr. Sternberg for allowing Mr. Meyer's paper
to see the light of day. Some scientists have called Mr. Sternberg a
closet creationist; Mr. Sternberg calls himself a process structuralist
who does "not subscribe to the claims of young-earth creationism."
Darwinians have also found Mr. Sternberg, who holds two Ph.D.s in
evolutionary biology and has written more than 30 articles for
peer-reviewed scientific books and publications, guilty by association:
He met Mr. Meyer at an ID conference in 2002 and the two - both
skeptical of neo-Darwinism discussed the possible publication of an
article calling into question the widely accepted theory.
Upon learning its journal had published the paper, BSW alerted Eugene
C. Scott, executive director for the National Center for Science
Education. A leading opponent of ID, Mr. Scott lamented the journal's
decision. But Mr. Meyer said he was pleased that his article had
"breached that barrier. The controversy creates a tremendous platform
to get our message out to scientists." More than 60 scientists from
around the world have requested copies of the article and an
accompanying packet of reference materials.
4. Is Islam Tolerant?
By Daniel Pipes
What do Muslims believe regarding freedom of religious choice? A
Koranic verse (2:256) answers: "There is no compulsion in religion."
That sounds clear cut, and the Islamic Center of Southern California
insists it is, arguing that it shows how Islam anticipated the
principles in the US constitution. The center sees the First Amendment
("Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof") as based on concepts in the
Koran's no-compulsion verse.
In a similar spirit, a former chief justice of Pakistan, S.A. Rahman,
argues that the Koranic phrase contains "a charter of freedom of
conscience unparalleled in the religious annals of mankind."
To a Western sensibility, this interpretation makes intuitive sense.*
Thus does Alan Reynolds, an economist at the CATO Institute, write in
The Washington Times that the verse signifies the Koran "counsels
religious tolerance."
Were it only so simple.
In fact, this deceptively simple phrase historically has had a myriad
of meanings. Here are some of them, mostly premodern, deriving from two
outstanding recent books, Patricia Crone's God's Rule: Government and
Islam and Yohanan Friedman's Tolerance and Coercion in Islam, augmented
by my own research.
Proceeding from least liberal to most liberal, the no-compulsion phrase
is considered variously to have been:
*Abrogated: The passage was over-ridden by subsequent Koranic verses
(such as 9:73 "O Prophet! Struggle against the unbelievers and
hypocrites and be harsh with them").
*Purely symbolic: The phrase is a description, not an imperative.
Islam's truth is so obvious, that to coerce someone to become a Muslim
does not amount to "compulsion"; or else being made to embrace Islam
after defeat in war is not viewed as "compulsion."
*Spiritual, not practical: Governments may indeed compel external
obedience, though they of course cannot compel how Muslims think.
*Limited in time and place: It applied uniquely to Jews in Medina in
the seventh century.
*Limited to non-Muslims who live under and accept Muslim rule: Some
jurists say it applies only to "Peoples of the Book" (Christians, Jews,
and Zoroastrians); others say it applies to all infidels.
*Excludes some non-Muslims: Apostates, women, children, prisoners of
war, and others can indeed be compelled. (This is the standard
interpretation that has applied in most times and places.)
*Limited to all non-Muslims: Muslims must abide by the tenets of Islam
and may not apostatize.
*Limited to Muslims: Muslims may shift from one interpretation of their
faith to another (such as from Sunni to Shi'i) but may not leave Islam.
*Applied to all persons: Reaching the true faith must be achieved
through trial and testing, and compulsion undercuts this process.
Massive disagreement over a short phrase is typical, for believers
argue over the contents of all sacred books, not just the Koran. The
debate over the no-compulsion verse has several important implications.
First, it shows that Islam - like all religions - is whatever believers
make of it. The choices for Muslims range from Taliban-style repression
to Balkan-style liberality. There are few limits; and there is no
"right" or "wrong" interpretation. Muslims have a nearly clean slate to
resolve what "no compulsion" means in the 21st century.
Conversely, non-specialists should be very cautious about asserting the
meaning of the Koran, which is fluid and subjective. When Alan Reynolds
wrote that the no-compulsion verse means the Koran "counsels religious
tolerance," he intended well but in fact misled his readers.
Further, many other areas of Islam have parallels to this debate.
Muslims can decide afresh what jihad signifies, what rights women have,
what role government should play, what forms of interest on money
should be banned, plus much else. How they resolve these great issues
affects the whole world.
Finally, although Muslims alone will make these decisions, Westerners
can influence their direction. Repressive elements (such as the Saudi
regime) can be set back by a reduced dependence on oil. More liberal
Muslims (such as the Atatürkists) can be marginalized by letting
an Islamist-led Turkey enter the European Union.
What non-Muslims do also has potentially a great impact on whether "no
compulsion in religion" translates into religious tolerance or permits
(as in the case of Salman Rushdie) a license to kill.
Daniel Pipes is director or the Middle East Forum. (www.DanielPipes.org)
5. BORN THAT WAY
(World, November 2004)
If it comes naturally, does that mean it's not sin?
"Is homosexuality a choice?" was the devilishly simple question
posed by debate moderator Bob Schieffer, and the country held its
breath. The president's "I don't know" was the best you can do under
the circumstances, under a clock. Of interest to me was the poisoned
premise embedded in the question, a premise so universally accepted, by
friend and foe alike, as to be invisible-that if something is not a
choice, then it is natural; and if something is natural, then it is not
to be denied. But let's think about that.
Let's begin by conceding, for the sake of argument, the whole genetic
ball of wax. Let's not even contest studies claiming that INAH-3
hypothalamus cells of homosexual male cadavers are statistically larger
than those of their heterosexual counterparts. (But is that size
difference a cause or an effect of homosexual activity?) Let's say
there is an Xq28 genetic marker for homosexuality. Then let's apply
this to John Kerry's assertion that the person living a lesbian
lifestyle is "being who she was born as."
(Parenthetically, it must be mentioned that not all proponents of
homosexuality are thrilled with the argument that they are genetically
hard-wired. Some are astute enough to see the disturbing implications
of this for their humanity, and want to claim instead that they are gay
by choice. Mr. Schieffer's question may already be passe as the gay
movement moves on.)
Genetic studies also show correlations with alcoholism and with
violence. No one, as far as I know, is saying the active alcoholic is
"being who she was born as." We direct her to a 12-step program - and
fast. Neither do we give a pass to violent offenders on the basis that
"biology is destiny."
Or what if, rather than genetics, its environment that drives a person
toward violence or alcoholism (or homosexuality)? Do we then give those
conditions a blessing? No, neither for chromosomes nor for abusive
fathers do we excuse the human moral agent from being in the driver's
seat.
What is sin? Is sin only the acts I commit with full volition or is sin
even things about myself that I was born with and that I loathe (Romans
7; Psalm 51)? Mr. X is saddled with a tendency to distemper-right from
the get-go. Ms. Y is born with a proclivity to gambling, something
she's been aware of from her first nickel bet on a hop-scotch game.
These things come "naturally," but given their way, they land us in
crime or debt or neglect of family. No drunk or serial killer marches
in a parade crying "Free to be me!" Indeed, are not these
predispositions the manifold ways that the Fall falls on us?
We all have sympathy for the notion that no blame should be assigned
where there is no prior consent to the act. And what a small series of
specious steps it is from "I was made that way" to "God made me this
way" to ""It is natural" to "It is good."
Does a just God punish a tendency I was born with? Well, if not, then
how can God punish any sin, since all sin is like that? I have a theory
that we are all born addicts of some kind or other, all battling (or
not) our private besetting sins. We must all fight temptation by
petitioning for grace.
"Fair is what a state has," our local Ms. Wagner tells her first-grade
kiddos. And annoying as that is to the alleger of unfairness, the point
is well taken. What's fair is what God says is fair. What's sin is what
God says is sin. And whether it's difficult or it's easy, and whether
it's curable or the battle of a lifetime, and even if it means never
marrying and satisfying your physical yearnings (which is a big if),
God's words leave no wiggle room as He censures "Sodom and Gomorrah and
the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality
and pursued unnatural desire" (Jude 7).
We conclude then that the fact that homosexuality (or greed, or
laziness) is with you from the womb, far from letting you breathe
easier, makes your plight all the worse! It means that sin runs deeper
than we thought! It goes deep in the fabric, like the mildewed cloth
that Mosaic law threw on the pyre. "Wretched man that I am!" Paul
exclaims upon discovering this (Romans 7:24-25). "Who will deliver me
from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our
Lord!"
6. TOUGH CHOICE
First Things, October 2004
Barbara Ehrenreich is hard as nails and demands that other women be
so too. "Time to take your thumbs out of your mouths, ladies, and speak
up for your rights. The freedoms that we exercise but do not
acknowledge are easily taken away." What has her upset in her column in
the New York Times is that polls show that "only 30 percent of women
are unambivalently pro-choice." Actually, the figure is much lower than
that.
Considerably less than 20 percent are unambivalently pro-choice if
unambivalently means they believe that abortion should be legally
available for any reason at any time during the entire course of
pregnancy and up through delivery (partial birth abortion). That, of
course, is the present license of the lawless law of Roe v. Wade. But
let's not quibble about the polling data; it is Ehrenreich's argument
that is of interest. There are, she writes, "an appalling number of
women who are willing to deny others the right that they once freely
exercised themselves." It is the women who regret having an abortion
and feel guilty about it who outrage Ms. Ehrenreich. She would deny
them their remorse and their resentment of an unlimited abortion
license that made it too easy for them to do wrong. They do not want
other women to be similarly tempted. Ehrenreich will have none of it:
"Honesty begins at home, so I should acknowledge that I had two
abortions during my all-too-fertile years. You can call me a bad woman,
but not a bad mother. I was a dollar-a-word freelancer and my husband a
warehouse worker, so it was all we could do to support the existing
children at a grubby lower-middle-class level. And when it comes to my
children - the actual extra uterine ones, that is - I was, and remain,
a lioness." Do not call her a bad mother. She acknowledges all her
children and is very protective of the ones she did not have killed.
She perhaps feels a bit uneasy about the abortions, since she offers
the excuse that the alternative would have been intolerable:
sub-middle-class existence with a husband working in a warehouse. Ugh.
She writes, "Choice can be easy, as it was in my case, or truly
agonizing." Today Ehrenreich is a best-selling author and liberal
activist, is divorced from her lower-middle-class husband and remarried
to Yale literary critic Peter Brooks, has houses in Charlottesville and
the Florida Keys and a column in the Times. No wonder the choice was
easy. What are the lives of two children compared to all that? It isn't
as though the children died for nothing. As for those for whom abortion
was "truly agonizing," Ehrenreich tells them to get over it. "Assuming
the fetal position," she writes, "is not an appropriate response." If
that does not persuade those millions of women with whose unhappiness
she is unhappy, Ehrenreich invokes the moral authority of Jean-Paul
Sartre who, she says, would accuse them of "bad faith" for wanting to
discourage other women from doing what they did. Sartre, it may be
remembered, was throughout his life an unrepentant apologist for
Communism's mass murderers. He taught generations of leftists the moral
wisdom that you can't make an omelet without breaking eggs.
Ehrenreich's column, "Owning Up to Abortion," carries the pull-quote,
"It's time to get past the guilt." It's time to move on. Money, fame,
media stardom, Ivy League connections. Those thumb-sucking women are
implying that it is not really terrific to be Barbara Ehrenreich, which
is ludicrous. Not that they will be able to match her success, but they
can at least support the abortion license that made it possible. Too
bad about those two kids, but, as Sartre understood, nothing comes
without paying a price. Sure it's unfair, but, then, life is unfair.
The children died in the cause of giving the public Barbara Ehrenreich
and giving Barbara Ehrenreich some really neat advantages. Do these
women know what it's like to live in a grubby lower-middle-class world
with a husband who works in a warehouse? Barbara Ehrenreich should feel
guilty about what she did? Get real, ladies.
7. Canadian Senator .. .
Warns Colleagues Of Danger Of Hate Crimes Bill
OTTAWA (LifeSiteNews) - Sen. Anne Cools rose in the Senate October
28 to speak in opposition to Bill C-250, the private member's bill by
homosexual activist Svend Robinson which seeks to add the term "sexual
orientation" to hate crimes law.
Cools told her colleagues that they should "grasp the enormity and
danger of the proposal before us." She referred to the legislation as
"pernicious and unprecedented," a "menace," and "a cruel proposition
intended to criminalize the verbal and written expression of moral
opinion on human sexuality and on human sexual practices."
Sen. Cools pointed out that "Bill C-250 will confer upon sexual
activities and sexual preferences those immutable, morally neutral,
physical, racial characteristics possessed by peoples of common
origins," noting further that "the term 'sexual orientation' is still
undefined and unlimited in law."
Cools drew a distinction between crimes which are already covered in
the Criminal Code and those which would be covered under the hate
crimes legislation. She noted that many activists have misconstrued the
debate on hate crimes legislation to suggest it addresses hateful acts
such as violence and murder.
She said: "Honorable senators, 'hate crime' is a legal concept where
the crime, the offense, is hate speech, hate propaganda, and
hate-mongering. It is not killing people. It is speech. It is
expression."
Sen. Cools cited examples of homosexual activists calling her own
speeches in favor of the traditional definition of marriage as "hate."
She thus warned that "Bill C-250 proposes to deploy the Criminal Code
as an instrument to overturn the moral opinion and the moral order of
millions of Candians, therein to impose different moral orders based on
different concepts of human sexuality."
Finally, Cools charged that "Bill C-250 is directed at those Canadians
whose moral opinions are unwanted by an elite group of homosexual
rights activists, a group that is well connected to the government and
[whose members] seek to overwhelm their opponents and to impose their
moral views on them. This elite disagrees morally with millions of
Canadians. Not content merely to disagree with them and to coexist with
them, this elite, by Bill C-250, seeks to persecute and to prosecute
them criminally."
8. Death by 'Due Process' : Activist courts are defying, not enforcing,
the Constitution.
By Lino A. Graglia
Wall Street Journal -Tuesday, May 24, 2005 12:01 a.m.
The battles in Congress over the appointment of even lower court
federal judges reveal a recognition that federal judges are now, to a
large extent, our real lawmakers. Proposals to amend the Constitution
to remove lifetime tenure for Supreme Court justices, or to require
that rulings of unconstitutionality be by more than a majority (5-4)
vote, do not address the source of the problem. The Constitution is
very difficult to amend--probably the most difficult of any supposedly
democratic government. If opponents of rule by judges secure the
political power to obtain an amendment, it should be one that addresses
the problem at its source, which is that contemporary constitutional
law has very little to do with the Constitution. Judge-made
constitutional law is the product of judicial review--the power of
judges to disallow policy choices made by other officials of
government, supposedly on the ground that they are prohibited by the
Constitution. Thomas Jefferson warned that judges, always eager to
expand their own jurisdiction, would "twist and shape" the Constitution
"as an artist shapes a ball of wax." This is exactly what has happened.
The Constitution is a very short document, easily printed on a dozen
pages. The Framers wisely meant to preclude very few policy choices
that legislators, at least as committed to American principles of
government as judges, would have occasion to make.
The essential irrelevance of the Constitution to contemporary
constitutional law should be clear enough from the fact that the great
majority of Supreme Court rulings of unconstitutionality involve state,
not federal, law; and nearly all of them purport to be based on a
single constitutional provision, the 14th Amendment--in fact, on only
four words in one sentence of the Amendment, "due process" and "equal
protection." The 14th Amendment has to a large extent become a second
constitution, replacing the original.
It does not require jurisprudential sophistication to realize that the
justices do not decide controversial issues of social policy by
studying those four words. No question of interpretation is involved in
any of the court's controversial constitutional rulings, because there
is nothing to interpret. The states did not lose the power to regulate
abortion in 1973 in Roe v. Wade because Justice Harry Blackmun
discovered in the due process clause of the 14th Amendment, adopted in
1868, the purported basis of the decision, something no one noticed
before. The problem is that the Supreme Court justices have made the
due process and equal protection clauses empty vessels into which they
can pour any meaning. This converts the clauses into simple
transferences of policy-making power from elected legislators to the
justices, authorizing a court majority to remove any policy issue from
the ordinary political process and assign it to themselves for
decision. This fundamentally changes the system of government created
by the Constitution The basic principles of the Constitution are
representative democracy, federalism and the separation of powers,
which places all lawmaking power in an elected legislature with the
judiciary merely applying the law to individual cases. Undemocratic and
centralized lawmaking by the judiciary is the antithesis of the
constitutional system.
The only justification for permitting judges to invalidate a policy
choice made in the ordinary political process is that the choice is
clearly prohibited by the Constitution--"clearly," because in a
democracy the judgment of elected legislators should prevail in cases
of doubt. Judicially enforced constitutionalism raises the issue, as
Jefferson also pointed out, of rule of the living by the dead. But our
problem is not constitutionalism but judicial activism--the
invalidation by judges of policy choices not clearly (and rarely even
arguably) prohibited by the Constitution. We are being ruled not by the
dead but by judges all too much alive.
Because most of the Supreme Court's activist rulings of
unconstitutionality purport to be based on a 14th Amendment that it has
deprived of specific meaning, the problem can be very largely solved by
simply restoring the 14th Amendment to its original meaning, or by
giving it any specific meaning. The 14th Amendment was written after
the Civil War to provide a national guarantee of basic civil rights to
blacks. If a constitutional amendment could be adopted reconfirming the
14th Amendment to that purpose or, better still, expanding it to a
general prohibition of all official racial discrimination, the Court's
free-hand remaking of domestic social policy for the nation would
largely come to an end. If the justices lost the ability to invalidate
state law on the basis of their political preferences, their ability
and willingness to invalidate federal law on this basis would likely
also diminish.
Plato argued for government by philosopher-kings, but who could argue
for a system of government by lawyer-kings? No one can argue openly
that leaving the final decision on issues of basic social policy to
majority vote of nine lawyers--unelected and life-tenured, making
policy decisions for the nation as a whole from Washington, D.C.--is an
improvement on the democratic federalist system created by the
Constitution. Yet that is the form of government we now have. The
claim that the court's rulings of unconstitutionality are mandates of
the Constitution, or anything more than policy preferences of a
majority of the justices, is false. Rule by judges is in violation, not
enforcement, of the Constitution. Ending it requires nothing more
complex than insistence that the court's rulings of unconstitutionality
should be based on the Constitution--which assigns "All legislative
Power" to Congress--in fact as well as name.
Mr. Graglia is the A. Dalton Cross Professor of Law, University of
Texas. This is adapted from "'A Country I Do Not Recognize': The Legal
Assault on American Values" (Robert Bork, editor), to be published this
fall by the Hoover Institution.
9. ANOTHER EVOLUTIONARY HOAX UNCOVERED
Christian News, March 14, 2005
Reiner Protsch, an influential German scientist, a supposed expert
in carbon dating, has been exposed as a forger and plagiarizer and his
dating of the northern European "Neanderthal man" has been found to be
bogus. During a routine check of Protsch's work last year, it was found
that a skeleton he had dated at 27,400 years was actually that of a man
who died 250 years ago. Another skeleton, which Protach had dated at
21,300 years, is actually 3,300 years old ("Anthropologist resigns in
dating disaster," WorldNetDaily, Feb. 19). Chris Stringer of London's
Natural History Museum said: "What was considered a major piece of
evidence showing that the Neanderthal once lived in northern Europe has
fallen by the wayside. We are having to rewrite prehistory." Frankfurt
University president Rudolf Steinberg apologized for the university
failure to curb Protsch's misconduct for decades, admitting, "A lot of
people looked the other way."
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10. Why Can't I Just Say My Prayers At Home?
By Fr. Panagiotes Carras
St. Nektarios Cathedral, Toronto, Canada
Every so often some one will ask me: Why do I have to come to
Church? Why can't I just say my prayers at home? This question is
not one that is a product of our times but one that has been a
temptation since the days of the early Church.
While reading one of St. John Chrysostom's sermons I ran into this
question once more. In a way that is characteristic of St. John's
pastoral concerns, he speaks of Christians coming together to pray as
being bound together in love. It is this bond that brings our
Saviour to be with us when we come together to pray: For where two or
three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them
(Matthew 18:20).
In the early Church, during the years of the Roman Persecution,
Christians would not miss the Divine Liturgy, even though they knew
that they were in danger of losing their lives. They knew that
staying home and saying their prayers was not enough. They knew
that by being at the Divine Liturgy, the Mystery of Coming
Together in Prayer would unite them with our Lord in a unique
manner. Let us not be lazy or negligent and miss the Grace of the
Bond of Love.
11. NEW ITEMS FROM THE BOOK CENTER
(VNM) VENERABLE NEW-MARTYR GRAND DUCHESS ELIZABETH FEODOROVNA. The
life of St. Elizabeth illustrated with icons and photos, together with
the Vespers & Matins service and Akathist Hymn in her honour.
90pp. Spiral e$11.00
(TM64) THE SMALL PARAKLESIS TO THE MOTHER OF GOD. Chanted by the
monks of Simonopetra Monastery on Mt. Athos. In Greek. CD only
d$18.00
(GS7) THE GREAT SYNAXARISTES OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCH, Vol. 7: March
Just published. 1064 pp. Cloth e$45.00. Please
note: all volumes are now $45.00 each.
(ACO9) ANCIENT CHRISTIAN COMMENTARY ON SCRIPTURE, Old Testament, Vol.
IX: Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon. The latest
volume in the series of the three Wisdom books attributed to
Solomon. 434pp. Cloth $40.00 Our price e$35.00
(GCOM) THE GOSPEL COMMENTARY translated by Fr. German Ciuba. A
collection of beautiful homilies for the Sundays and feast days of the
church year, drawn from the Holy Fathers (mainly St. John Chrysostom).
The compilation generally attributed to Patriarch Philotheus of
Constantinople, who added a preface and concluding passage to each
homily. Large format, printed in red and black with gold
stamping. 871pp. Cloth. e$60.00 Order
* Lactactius