Dear Fellow Sinners Avery Cardinal Dulles, Fordham University  Most Rev. Richard Malone, Bishop of Portland Orono, Maine  Most Rev. Sean O'Malley Archbishop of Boston  Father Paul Marx, founder, Human Life International Father Frank Pavone, co-founder and director, Priests for Life Father Theodore Hesburgh, president emeritus, Notre Dame University Father Richard McBrien, Notre Dame University Father Richard John Neuhaus, founder and editor-in-chief, FIRST THINGS Father Thomas Carleton, author, THE PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE Father Joseph Fessio, founder, Thomas More Law Center Judie Brown, founder and president, American Life League Steven Mosher, president, Population Research Institute (founded by Fr. Marx) Joe Scheidler, founder and director, Pro-Life Action League Phil Lawler, editor, THE CATHOLIC WORLD REPORT (founded by Fr. Fessio) Bill Cotter, director, Operation Rescue Boston Raymond Arroyo, reporter, ETERNAL WORD TELEVISION NETWORK Frank Morriss, editorialist, THE WANDERER Mark Crutcher, founder and president, Life Dynamics Jim Chute, Clerk of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court (the Law Court)  Most Rev. Robert Carlson, Bishop of Sioux Falls (new Bishop of Saginaw) Dear Fellow Sinners: If you're still aboard [Mr. Hughes wrote two preceding and content-sequential letters], this is the third and final part of examining the question: Which is worse, hating Jesus or being ashamed of Him? In the first part, I assumed hating Jesus began with those among the Sanhedrin who plotted His execution and cited that as being the deepest root of anti-Judaism among Christians and then anti-Semitism among secularists as materialism displaced religious belief. To the extent that Zionism displaced Judaism among Jews, policies linked to Zionist expansion in the Holy Land led to anti-Semitism among Moslems, especially in the Arab world. I think very few Jews today would say they "hate" Jesus, or would admit it if they did. But only a few who do, as among the Sanhedrin, can start a whole people down a path that leads to Auschwitz, just as only seven Supreme Court justices have unleashed an Abortion Holocaust still raging after 32 years that has murdered one-third of the next generation of Americans.   I linked being ashamed of Jesus to specific Catholic archbishops, based on their practice of coddling Catholic politicians who promoted killing God's babies by abortion and homosexual priests who routinely sodomized altar boys, thereby violating their bodies and deadening their souls. These archbishops give every outward appearance of thinking they are "nicer than Jesus" to use the phrase coined by Randy Terry, co-founder with Rev. Joseph Foreman of Operation Rescue, to describe clergymen who approved of abortion. These clergymen were ashamed of the "hard sayings" of Jesus that are and will always be counter to the World, the Flesh and the Devil. Therefore they were ashamed of Him, because He is His Word. Since some 70 percent of American archbishops and bishops have given a wink and a nod to abortion and sodomy by coddling those who promote and practice these evils, I would say that 70 percent are ashamed of Jesus. Anti-Semitism aims at wiping the Jewish people off the face of the Earth. Abortion and sodomy aim at wiping children off the face of the Earth. Why are these groups targeted? Who is behind it? The answer is found in Sacred Scripture. In my own case, understanding these scriptures has been aided immensely by reading The Mystical City of God, by Venerable Mary of Agreda (1602-1665), a Franciscan nun in Spain. The book is 2676 pages long, gives a detailed history of the Mother of God revealed by God Himself, and establishes her place in salvation history. The Spanish Inquisition approved the book, but the Roman Inquisition did not, mainly because of a faulty translation, but also because it gave support to certain theological speculations by Duns Scotus over those of Thomas Aquinas, a view shared by French Jansenists. She wrote the book under a direct order from her confessor, but a later confessor ordered her to burn it, which she did. Some ten years later her spiritual director ordered her to rewrite the whole thing, which took five years. It wasn't published until five years after her death. This is taken from the 1907 edition of The Catholic Encyclopedia. Decrees authorizing it to be read were issued by popes Innocent XI, Alexander VIII, Clement IX, and Benedict XIII, approved by Benedict XIV and Clement XIV. Benedict XIII used it as a basis for a series of sermons. It has gone through sixty editions in ten languages. For those of a scientific bent, in the book she states God told her that Earth was a slightly egg-shaped sphere flattened at the poles, which it is, but nobody knew that at the time. The Mystical City of God states that before God created anything, He had it in His mind to become man in the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, and be born of a woman who would therefore be the Mother of God. This decision was a virtual necessity of His desire to make Himself known outside of Himself. Here and elsewhere, Mary of Agreda wrote "according to our way of understanding such things" because she also insists that God needs nothing outside of Himself. Therefore, this compulsion to create is a mystery. In order to fulfill this desire, God created the universe, including Heaven and Earth, with Heaven meant to be mankind's eventual home, understood as being in union with God, and Earth meant to be a temporary place for testing mankind. The desire to Personally become a man was independent of whether mankind passed or failed the test. If we passed, God would become incarnate as a man with the graces and perfections of Adam and Eve. If we failed, He would take on the limitations of fallen man stripped of these attributes and therefore subject to suffering and death, God knew that would be the case, but He showed Peter, James, and John the form He might have taken on Mount Tabor and, in less spectacular form, to all the disciples after His Resurrection. God created Heaven and Earth, the spiritual and material realms, when He said, "Let there be light" (Genesis 1). In material terms, "light" could be the creation of the Universe that filled the void of empty space according to the currently popular Big Bang cosmology. However, "light" also meant creation of Angels, because "light" describes their spiritual and intellectual nature. When He found the light "good" and "divided the light from the darkness" in Genesis 1, He was referring to the test He gave His Angels. For those who passed, the "light" was intensified immeasurably by granting them the Beatific Vision of Himself face-to-face (according to our way of understanding). For those who failed, even the light they had was dimmed, and they were banished to Hell, a realm of darkness in the center of the Earth from which God was absent. The test consisted of enlightening their minds in three stages. The first stage was the revelation that they owed their existence to Him, and that He existed as a Blessed Trinity of Three Persons in One God. He showed them all of His creation and gave them a knowledge of good and evil. The reward of goodness would be to see Him as He really is and the reward of evil would be banishment from Him in Hell, which He showed to them. Then He ordered them to worship Him as their Creator. They all did with their minds and most did joyfully out of love, knowing they were nothing without Him. Lucifer, with the highest angelic gifts, obeyed only with his mind, because he could not imagine any other explanation for his own existence. Even then, Lucifer was centered on himself out of pride. But he obeyed, so his beauty was only dimmed, not lost.   After God revealed His material creation to His Angels, with man at its pinnacle having an immortal soul capable of knowing God, He told them His purpose in creation was to become a man, Jesus Christ in the Person of God the Son, Who will lead mankind to union with God in Heaven, the same reward He promised the Angels who obeyed Him. He enlightened His Angels that they were created not only to worship Him, but also to assist in this task. God then ordered His Angels to worship Jesus. This is when Lucifer rebelled and led others into rebellion by objecting that it was beneath the dignity of Angels to worship a God-man, when mankind had been created from the dust of the Earth and Angels were pure spirits far above men. Then he asserted if anyone was to become incarnate as a man and have the nature of God, it should be himself, Lucifer, Since he was the pinnacle of spiritual creation and man was the pinnacle of material creation. The third stage was virtually coincident with the second stage because God revealed that Jesus Christ would be born of an Earthly woman. Angels were not only to serve mankind, but He ordered them to acknowledge the mother of Jesus Christ as the Queen of Angels, and He gave them a vision of the woman crowned as Queen of Heaven. This is when Lucifer became the great red dragon who confronts the woman in Apocalypse 12, triggering a battle in Heaven when one-third of the Angels joined Lucifer, now Satan the accuser, and Saint Michael the Archangel rallied the others with the battle cry, Who is like God? This was a battle of minds, of intellects and wills, with the will dominating the intellects of the bad Angels and the intellects dominating the wills of the good Angels, just as God's intellect informs His will. The intellect of God the Father saw creation as a way to manifest His glory, but creation was accomplished through the will of God the Son in obedience to His Father. In Satan, willful pride trumps intellect, going its way despite knowing it leads to Hell. As Milton had Satan say in Paradise Lost, "Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven!" Upon His creation of Adam and Eve, God released Satan from bondage in Hell long enough to tempt them. In the form of a serpent, Satan tempted Eve because he thought she might be the Woman God had revealed to him as the Mother of God. He offered her a knowledge of good and evil. like God had revealed to him and the other Angels, but unlike God, he presented evil as enticing. She fell and took Adam with her. As their children were born and died, Satan realized Eve was not that Woman, but as salvation history unfolded through God's promise to Abraham, Satan knew the Woman would be Jewish. So he plotted in every way to destroy the Jewish people, by leading them into slavery in Egypt, into idolatry in Canaan, into exile in Babylon, whatever it took. Satan is the root cause of anti-Semitism culminating in Auschwitz and of animosity between Arabs and Jews in the Holy Land today. Hating Jesus meant hating Jews.   Closer to home, what is more Satanic than a Catholic politician dedicated to killing God's children by abortion having a fundraising dinner in a Catholic church named after Saint John, the beloved disciple of Jesus Christ, on a Friday, the day He died on the Cross for our sins, in May, the month of His mother? When a Catholic calls attention to the impending sacrilege, what is more Satanic than the priest of that parish slithering under a rock (he left town) so his parish manager, a woman, has to sign a police order banning this Catholic (me, in case you didn't know) from ever attending Mass in that church? When the Catholic undertakes a Sunday prayer vigil in front of the church in atonement for the sacrilege, what devil arranged for the same woman to conspire with others to bear false witness under oath accusing the Catholic of "assaulting" her, with two men swearing falsely that they saw it? Where is the priestly concern for this woman's soul? Who tries to lift her up to Heaven as Satan drags her down to Hell? Why was a woman picked to bear this burden of sin? Where were the men? Where are they now? What is Hell like? Mary of Agreda says it's at the center of the Earth. There the temperature is thousands of degrees and the pressure is thousands of atmospheres, and Earth's core is solid iron. Sin is always depicted as weight that pulls us down into Hell, whereas holiness makes us light so we ascend into Heaven. What if Hell is at the center of the Earth, and what if everyone there after the general resurrection finds his or her body entombed under great pressure in solid iron heated to thousands of degrees, so he or she can't move or even see or hear or feel anyone who might be entombed in iron just a few feet away? What if he or she wants it that way, and wouldn't change it even if given the chance? How can any Catholic, let alone a Catholic priest, place his parish manager, a woman, in danger of that? Where will that priest be, entombed a few feet away? Well, we can say Hell isn't at the center of the Earth. John says in Apocalypse 21 there will be a new Heaven and a new Earth at the end of time. Not so fast! Maybe only Earth's surface will be new, a restoration of the Garden of Eden. Doesn't Jesus Christ says Hell is forever? Is that one of His "hard sayings" that makes us "nicer than Jesus" and ashamed of Him? Even if Earth does "pass away" Hell remains, a state in which we will be totally immobilized by sin, alone and entombed in our own pride, unable to reach out to anyone because we don't want to, ablaze with hatred and with hearts hard as iron. It won't be that way? Don't be so sure. A Catholic priest who regularly sodomizes altar boys is already that way. A Catholic politician dedicated to killing babies by abortion is already that way. A Catholic bishop who facilitates them both is already that way. Lay Catholics who see no great evil in sodomy and abortion are already that way. Those who do see the evil but do nothing are already that way. They either hate Jesus or are ashamed of Him. He demands too much, they say. Why can't He just live and let live? Did God become man in Jesus Christ, suffer and die horribly on the Cross, for any other reason than to manifest His glory and love, keep us out of Hell, and get us into Heaven with Him? How can anyone read the accounts of His Passion and say there is no Hell'? We can go to Hell. He said so! So which is worse, hating Jesus or being ashamed of Him? Jesus said, "I know thy works; thou art neither cold nor hot. But because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to vomit thee out of my mouth." (Apocalypse 3:15-16) How can anyone who is ashamed of Jesus be anything but lukewarm toward Him? "For whoever is ashamed of Me and of My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when He comes with the holy Angels in the glory of His Father." (Luke 8:38) The archbishops I named in my last letter, by stating publicly that they would give Our Lord in Holy Communion to politicians dedicated to killing His babies by abortion, and give Him in Holy Communion to homosexuals dedicated to corrupting his boys by sodomizing them, proclaim they are ashamed of Jesus for His "hard sayings" in defense of Life and Chastity. If an observant Jew truly believes Jesus Christ is a false prophet and not Who He says He is, hates Jesus for that reason, and acts accordingly by persecuting His followers, his "works" would be "hot." There was such a Jew, Saul of Tarsus. Jesus harnessed Saul's zeal by making Himself known to Saul on the road to Damascus. Saul became Saint Paul and brought Jesus Christ to the gentiles. Another zealot was Adolf Hitler, who hated all Jews and hated Jesus Christ as a Jew. How does Our Lord sort these people out? If their zeal is out of love for the Truth, Jesus will save them, because Jesus is the Truth. Someone who was "cold" toward Jesus Christ was Augustine of Hippo as a young man. In answer to the zealous prayers of Augustine's mother, he became Saint Augustine who zealously proclaimed the City of God above the City of Man to a decadent and dying Roman world, thereby reviving Christendom. What is missing in the six archbishops I named in my last letter. and is missing in 70 percent of American bishops, is zeal for the Truth. Lacking that zeal, they have made their peace with abortion and sodomy, the twin evils that prevent God from bringing new souls into the world. These souls are destined to take the places in Heaven that God had meant for His Angels who rejected Him and followed Lucifer-become-Satan into Hell. Satan is driven by an intense hatred to drag those souls into Hell with him, defying God by defying His will for our souls. Satan particularly hates women, who are assaulted by abortion and demeaned by sodomy (preferring an organ of excrement to one of birth). Satan knows that without the consent of a woman, God could not have become man in Jesus Christ, and Satan would then drag us into Hell. But that Woman did give her consent, wholly and without reservation. In cooperating with abortion and sodomy, these bishops and archbishops are giving their consent to Satan, not Christ. That should terrify them. That it doesn't shows how lukewarm they are. Vomit in His mouth. I loath having to say things like this that make me a sinner more than I already am. "Who is like God?" Viva Cristo Rey! Terry "Iceman" Hughes Contact Us www.catholictradition.org/Life/.htm HOME----------------------------------------------------LIFE