GLENN BECK COMPOSITE IMAGE
BANNER

BY PAULY FONGEMIE
APRIL 15,
Feast of Saints Basilissa and Anastasia, Christian Martyrs of Rome

BAR
I am a lifelong practicing Catholic who could no more leave Holy Mother Church than I would will to take my own life in an act of suicide. To abandon the Catholic faith for me is an unimaginable act beyond my ability to comprehend, yet many do so every year. Those who depart have always been a mystery and of great concern to me. One of those is a man I find myself agreeing with on many issues of import to those who care about our country, although I am definitely not a libertarian, nor besotted with our Founders, who were all too often imbued with the Masonic spirit, essentially at heart, anti-Catholic, although they professed religious tolerance. For instance, I could never compare or equate the virtues of faith, hope and charity with George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin, as Glenn Beck once did. And he is no longer a Catholic, which is perhaps why he holds some of the ideas he now espouses. But I do know he is sincere and seeking with all his might to do the right thing in all things. I pray for this man and ask that God bless him with the gift of knowledge, wisdom and supernatural charity, and most especially, for his sake, the gift of true faith realized.

Glenn Beck is one of a handful of prominent men in America who are awake, diligently alert - ablaze for authentic justice and truth unparsed and unspared. In normal times, if there be any such state of being, ordinary attributes of the good man would not be considered heroic virtue. However the time we live in is most unusual, even by preternatural norms, for truth is openly reviled and spurned, its adherents scorned and vilified, meriting suspect class automatically. Thus, I deem Glenn Beck a man of natural heroic virtue.

I believe that Mr. Beck fears not the intelligentsia of the prevailing esprit de corps that mandates political correctness or else, meaning, personal destruction by any and all means possible, without scruples, for Glenn Beck fears more the loss of integrity of his soul and his mind, his honor as a man and as a citizen with a manifest duty to his country.

When I first learned of him he was advocating libertarianism. What is this ideology, and why is it not accepted by the Catholic Church?

Libertarianism is a group of associated political philosophies that uphold liberty as the highest political end. This includes emphasis on the primacy of individual liberty, political freedom, and voluntary association. Libertarians advocate a society with a greatly reduced state or no state at all in the most extreme form, a rarity actually.

At first glance this all seems perfectly in keeping with the natural law and the dignity of the human person and his natural rights as given by God, which inhere in his very nature as created by God, i.e., in His image and likeness. Rights are not a "collective" moral and ontological good. Rights granted by God are the sole attribute or possession of individual persons; persons as unique human beings were redeemed by Jesus Christ. Each person has a soul that is solely his.

Society, or to use the term of the ruling American illuminati, "the collective" consists of unique individuals but it in of itself is not an entity with a soul, although we do apply the notion of soul to a nation or a society poetically, figuratively speaking, without intending the metaphor or simile to be taken literally. We have rights because we are created by God with the purpose, to know, love and serve Him in this world and to be happy with Him in the next. The first right God gives to man, is his inalienable right to life as long as he is innocent or not "living by the sword" to use the aphorism.

All other rights follow from this first and primary right, and are said to be adjuncts of the right to life. Because man has been given the precious gift and right to life, he has certain irrevocable responsibilities before God above all else, and then, and only then, to his fellow man in a more limited sense. By this is meant that his neighbor in of himself or his intermediary, has no right to impose spurious obligations on him in violation of his dignity or in the name of "Caesar." The rights of and obligations under "Caesar" must be in accord with the natural law and its requisite mandates. Of course, each man owes to his fellow man that which is in harmony in justice, not only charity, with his natural dignity as well, but this cannot be consonant with just any claim at all, no matter how many support a false claim. Furthermore, these responsibilities, which assist society, do not become the property of society, but remain with individuals. Why? Yes, man was created to be a social being as well, but this does not mean that his rights are transferred to the group. His rights remain always his rights, period, by definition and necessity of being because it is the person who has the responsibility to God for the gift of life - he is an ensouled being that cannot be dominated by the group which may consist of individuals with varying degrees of the plenitude of grace or the lack thereof. It is the individual man who stands before God at his particular judgment, not the group or "collective". It is not the group that saves in of itself, but God and God alone, although society is designed by God to assist man in his striving for salvation and everyday existence in that quest. Often society is an obstruction because there is no certitude that it is made up of persons who believe and honor God as He truly is in His very essence and who acknowledge His dominion over man in the temporal sphere, not just the spiritual. In fact, this is the usual state of things because of Original Sin and the multiplication of discord and diverse beliefs of men fractured from their original nature and the only one true God.

The body of work on the natural law is in large part due to St. Thomas of Aquinas, the premier standard for theology in the Church, who wrote extensively about the natural law. He said: "the light of reason is placed by nature [by God using nature, that is] in every man to guide him in his acts." Therefore, human beings, alone among the creatures of God, use reason, not instinct, to lead their lives. The law of natural reason can be known by every man by virtue of his humanity and nature, provided he attains to the age of reason, beginning approximately at the age of seven years, in rudimentary fashion and developing as he grows in age and grace. The master principle of the natural law wrote St. Thomas was that "good is to be done and pursued and evil avoided." He taught that reason reveals particular natural laws that are good for human persons, such as self-preservation, marriage [traditional definition only], and family, and the desire to know God. Reason, he said, also enables men to understand things that are evil such as adultery, suicide, and lying. While natural law is universal, applying to every single person and is unalterable, human law could vary with time, place and circumstance. He defined this kind of law as an ordinance of reason for the "common good" made and enforced by a ruler or government. However he issued this caveat, that people are not morally bound to obey human law that conflicts with the natural law. In fact, the Church clearly teaches we have a duty to resist such a law, to do everything in our power not to co-operate with it and to abolish it through legitimate, moral means.

He also addressed the reality of even laws that are actually directed toward the common good that do not necessarily conflict with the natural law but are unduly burdensome, and thus unjust on their face. These too, can be morally resisted by the people; they are free to disobey because they cannot really obey without incurring a grave injustice or disobeying right reason and or common sense themselves. This does not mean anarchy or a free-for-all, only that as long as man retains the use of right reason and exercises natural virtue, etc., he and his neighbor who shares equally in his human nature, and who dwell side by side incurring the same conditions imposed by an inherently unjust - unduly burdensome - law, will arrive at the same conclusion that is uniform, and not unsettling to harmony and peaceful accord. The common good does not absolve personal responsibility or negate individual rights, but, indeed, it depends on the very exercise of the same.

 We all know, if we are honest enough to think for a moment, that when one missteps and characterizes a group as having rights as such, that the responsibilities that flow from the rights that God bestows to persons as individuals, one at a time at conception, get lost or passed off to others and in the end, no one has any real individual rights, no true liberty, and no one takes rightful responsibility ultimately - one of the reasons that big bureaucratic government is so irresponsible and unresponsive in a helpful, honest way. What happens? Human nature, in its deformed state, not beholden to Almighty God as the first source of all good and acted upon in this rebellious frame of mind, cut adrift from sanctifying grace, considers persons who are deemed unworthy by "the state" to be rendered scapegoats for whatever ails that society at any given time. Currently, strains of the government apparatus are beginning to label Bible-believing Christians as possible threats to the so-called "social order". It would be the same if the outcasts are Jews, or any other group in general. In a Christian country with a constitution in keeping with the rights and responsibilities of persons under the dominion of God, we would still not say that society or "the collective" has rights, although real, natural, God-given rights would most likely be under less threat, if any at all. Individual rights are so paramount that even the deceits and conceits of the ever-encroaching government we labor under today acknowledges this reality, albeit in a specious, manipulative manner, by calling their tyrannical attempts into being through word play, or adopting "rights talk" - "in the name of rights" they are curtailing some, such as the supposed free speech codes on campuses that are repressive, curtailing speech. This is almost always conducted on a broad incremental basis, because to do otherwise would be to provide ammunition to the people who are scheduled for victimization and tyranny, the enslavement of the human spirit. To further disarm the more astute among us our power hungry elites like to style themselves "progressives" - in other words, to conquer by progressive steps. One of the casualties of such a morbid disease, and a government that refuses to acknowledge the dominion of God in human affairs is a cancer that spreads oer the land, is that freedom of conscience is easily dismissed. We only have to look at the rise of cases where a Christian is persecuted or otherwise penalized by governments and courts because he or she refuses to abet the sin of sodomy, so highly regarded by our rulers as a sanctified right above the very right of conscience!

So one would surmise that libertarianism would be a good political ideal to espouse. Yes and No. The No, which is Catholic, is that society and partly the government of that society, must assist man not only in his earthly well-being but at the very least must not hinder him in his aim to save his soul. God must be recognized by society because He, too, has rights, which are above those rights adhering in individual men who live and work as part of a society. So Catholics, at least those who still maintain Tradition as all Catholics are bound to, also acknowledge that government is a good thing and in the hands of good men, a very good thing. Where the conflict arises is how much government and what kind, etc. Good men often disagree on the degree. On the whole, libertarianism while close to much of the traditional idea of government rightly proportional to the rights and responsibilities of men created by God, as held by many, if not all libertarians, tends to reject government mandates in private actions loosely called "bedroom issues", for want of a better term. And mostly they are on point. The Catholic Church does not promote the full force of government here because the good that might result is outweighed by the more probable harm. This is what is meant by the Church as due tolerance, while admitting that as individuals we cannot approve of certain human actions, transforming these actions into "rights" in of themselves. But most Americans, including libertarians, now assign the classification of "bedroom" or privacy rights to include and thereby endorse abortion and "gay marriage" as actual "rights", for instance, if only by default, if not outright proclaiming so-called "rights" as "right".

When I first listened to Mr. Beck, I understood that he had put these two issues on the back burner, so to speak, as many libertarians seem to do. As a Catholic I have an absolute duty otherwise. Hence, I do not associate myself with libertarianism.

Having said this, in order to stipulate it and get it out of the way for the purpose of this little monograph of salutation, I think I may have been initially mistaken or else, Mr. Beck has moderated some of his views in re the scope of libertarianism.

Mr. Beck is without equal in non-Catholic circles in his defense of the rights of the preborn baby.

Before we can adequately address a moral and societal evil, we have to be able to name the thing in our midst by what it correctly is. Too many of those with a public voice spend too much time in nuance, bending over to be "fair" to both sides of an issue, even if it means the issue is distorted, and as if those who advocate intrinsic evils themselves have a just right to a hearing, as if evil and good are moral equivalents. This is why the people are so benighted and confused, even bewildered at times. They have been relegated to the state of active indoctrination in the guise of passive indifferentism of the pseudo equitable, not that which is irreducibly just and fair by common sense, not to mention the natural law itself.

Glenn Beck is a powerful voice, an unwavering proponent of the necessity of the truth and the duty to defend it with honor and steadfastness, in service to the truth for its own sake and for the common good of all of mankind. By truth we mean those self-evident truths, the permanent things that do not change and that can be known by reason, aided by grace, and those which are revealed by God. Problems arise because some men not only consider themselves the guardian of truth, they have decided to renounce the only true, the only God that is and will ever be, and devise their own definitions of the good and the true.  Objective truth is good, it is everlasting, it is beauty itself, because it directs man to his ultimate end, union with God forever, and it is not divisible; it is one, a unified whole. One element cannot be tinkered with, re-written or denied without all of truth being inexorably harmed. Today too many men regard truth as subjective only which not only divides society, it destroys its very nature as designed by God, in keeping with the purpose He created men.

While Mr. Beck is no longer a Catholic he is still endeavoring to know truth completely as humanly possible, with all of his mind, soul, and heart and may God bless him mightily for it!

The truth of the humanity of the preborn baby is so paramount that its denial has put a stake into the very heart and soul of our nation, so that we can truly speak of two societies at large: the one that recognizes the humanity and the natural inalienable rights of the littlest of children among us, and those who no longer understand or no longer care and insist on "the right" to kill at will these precious tiny human beings. That society is dead although holding much of the power in its hands, but it is truly dead, because it is without heart or soul, it is a spent thing that must use the despotic vise, the kind that crushes the other in order to maintain itself, because it cannot perpetuate its grip in any other manner. Because it is a spent thing, a grotesque thing, it can only destroy, in imitation of its Father, the devil who prowls the world seeking the ruin of souls. The ruin of the soul of society - its spirit of noble justice and supernatural charity - that is, many many dead souls who no longer know what these virtues are, nor desire to obtain them - more than suffices for his plans.

The Dr. Kermit Gosnell case in Philadelphia is a real moment of truth story for all of America. Until Beck's THE BLAZE network - TRUTH LIVES HERE - began storming the citadel of the fourth estate's silence on the case because they are so pro-abortion they fear anything that might bring a more righteous perspective to the attention of the American public, this shame-filled saga of ignominy was being buried by pernicious neglect.

Beck's courageous decision to show the pictures, just as the Jews insisted we see the pictures of the Holocaust, is inspired because it is surely a picture of such stark reality and cruelty that speaks far more than all the eloquence he himself is capable of, and Mr. Beck is capable most excellently. These savaged, ravaged little babies tore my heart out and I am a bona fide "member of the choir."

Gosnell is the strangest of ghouls beyond a shadow of a doubt. There were jars of small baby parts scattered throughout his macabre, sordid urine-smelling blood-drenched "clinic" where he aborted women who were "Black and or minorities" because he thought that White women would complain. Gosnell, by the way, and this is the only reason I mention it, is Black. Imagine the contempt he has for those of his own race to think this way! But, then, what is this contempt in comparison to the contempt he has for the sanctity of human life? At one point he laughed about a baby that he had murdered after birth. As Beck listed all of the charges stemming from admissions by employees, some as young as fifteen and still in school, I could not fight the tears, and I am an old pro at this and should have been steeled, but one can never get used to this if he or she is in love with God and on fire with zeal for those things He has given and has dominion over, human life being prime. I am grateful that I cannot be stoic about such matters. Such emotion is a blessing and a sign of life still worth it all.

Gosnell, a one-man holocaust machine specialized in inducing live births or aborting late term babies who survived the initial brutality; he then murdered them by using scissors to sever their spinal nerve. There are so many the count is now lost, although the state has only charged him with 8 such murders. The state of Pennsylvania aided and abetted this "doctor" because he was cited by state agencies for years on end for gross violations of even the lax abortion regulations that tend to proliferate. Abortion is the most under-regulated "procedure" - a term I use advisedly, believe me - in the world. The state did not penalize him, he was given mere warnings that became permission slips in reality, given human nature at its worst, and wanton murder is always human nature at its worst.

Glenn Beck is dynamic, convincing, compelling in pointing out that there is no essential distinction between a baby at 6 months gestation and one just before and so forth. Precisely. Too many of the media is wont to shade the truth by degree, quibbling over the value of one baby versus another based on gestational age or in the womb versus out of the womb. Beck has demonstrated great insight because he told his BLAZE audience - THE GLENN BECK PROGRAM, my favorite early evening [5 PM Eastern time] news show - that the media can see Newtown, Connecticut children, but because it cannot see the babe in the womb it thinks it can pretend he or she is not there and thus does not matter.

Of course, this does not thoroughly explain why they still try to avoid the by now more than self-evident obvious - the struggling, screaming baby who is being tortured to death with the instruments devised to foster life in such bitter agonizing irony! Still these "watchdogs" turn away so easily in order to avoid the truth, as if memory is such a fragile thing. Glenn Beck is determined that this will not happen. Although the terror event in Boston this week has temporarily superseded the Gosnell trial, Beck's web site THE BLAZE.COM is keeping watch and bearing witness, so that there is a memory to be remembered, the memory of the thousands of little children who were sacrificed on the altar of convenience and "rights", yielding so much money for this self-made millionaire. Words fail actually as they should. Thus the pictures ... these babies are your and my brothers and sisters in the family of man. The "collective" does not think they have any rights at all, and that any child who survives the womb and the Gosnells among us, belong ultimately to them to dispose of as they see fit. Did I say bitter irony? Need I repeat?

So Catholic Tradition web site salutes Glenn Beck for his bravery and resolute tenacity, for the willingness to be the scourge of those who scourge mankind with their hideous edicts and meglomaniacal deeds, born of pride and much worse. Beck called Gosnell "a monster". Indeed! But then, the behometh we struggle to disgorge ourselves from is a monster in every sense of the word, because it withholds obedience to the very Word of God, written in the heart of every man by virtue of his creation by God, that word being the natural law.

Won't you please join me in thanking Glenn Beck for his service to America, for the inspiration he provides, the hope he instills in us all who know the man he is working to become. And won't you please also join me in praying every day for him and his family, that one day they will come home at last to their true home on earth, the bosom of Holy Mother Church, the Catholic Church, the only ark of salvation by Christ's will. For He sayeth, "And other sheep I have, and them also I must bring, and they shall hear My voice and there shall be one fold and one Shepherd." John 10:16

Meanwhile I join my one small voice to his mighty one, that silence about the wretched and utter evil of abortion will not will out. One man with his convictions and the means to propagate them is a majority, if he persists. This goes, too, for one woman, perhaps even more, because she is a woman and a mother ...


The above image is a composite of two images we altered, then fused together for this article. We wanted the image of Glenn Beck to be as perfect as possible. We have the full size at 1600 x 900 pixels for those who would like to view or download it, HERE.




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