From a state political figure whose views I often quite appreciate (and whose courage in more than one currently unpopular cause is exemplary), this story about a consortium attempting to raise funds to kill babies in Oklahoma City:

That’s what they think the women of Oklahoma need: More abortionists.

Personally, I can think of a whole slate of things the women of Oklahoma need more than they need another abortionist. I know a lot of Oklahoma women who’ve had abortions. Wish they hadn’t, but they did. Not one of them — not one — had any problem obtaining an abortion because of a lack of abortionists.

However, Trust Women, a group that may or may not open clinics around the country, has targeted Oklahoma for a fund-raising drive to open another abortion clinic.

(source: Group Raises Funds to Open Abortion Clinic in Oklahoma.)

There are a number of recent events that may well cause concern among those who measure “progress” by the ease with which those who make a living killing babies can reach their “target market” without competition from those who would like to ensure that mothers and children are protected from exploitation and slaughter:  arrests, laws requiring such “health care providers” to at least take minimal steps to care for health, and always and everywhere prayer, the mightiest weapon in the arsenal of those who love life and its Creator.

An army marches on its stomach, but the Church marches on her knees:

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?  As it is written, “For thy sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”  No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

(source: Romans 8:31-39 RSVCE – God’s Love in Christ Jesus – What – Bible Gateway)

And mindful of that triumph, and grateful for all those who for any reason and from any perspective join in the good will of the Creator toward all living humans, I look forward to tomorrow.

While we’re here, though, let me slightly disagree with Hamilton on a different matter, in a different post.  Though I understand her sentiments, and agree that we don’t need to “get all in a lather” about this other matter, I wish she had expressed her thoughts slightly more carefully.

A certain priest attempted marriage last November, and has been removed from his position (though not at this time laicized) as a result.

I quite agree with Hamilton’s frank reaction here:

Obviously, [the priest] should have been a big boy about this and left the priesthood before he tied the knot. But, I’m far more sympathetic than appalled by this turn of events. I would imagine that the embarrassment and humiliation are scalding for [the couple]. It’s painful, having your life with its human stuff paraded around in public

(source: OKC Priest Commits Marriage. Is Removed from Parish.)

Absolutely.  It is incredibly hard to imagine the strain on those who end up on display as “public Christians,” the more so when some confusion or error in judgment or rebellion has made that scrutiny unbearable.  It is hard enough for any of us to bear public shame without defiance or despair.  Sympathy should definitely accompany clarity in such matters.

But it should not overwhelm clarity, or we will find it too hard to ever set things right in any of our lives.  We have to know which way is up, and we have to say so plainly, or risk drowning every time a wave tumbles us under.

So I have to disagree with Hamilton here: 

The deeds are done and nobody was hurt except [the couple]. The months of lying and sneaking must have been miserable for both of them. His time as a priest is over. Now they can begin their lives as husband and wife out in the sunshine and for real.

Personally, I’m all ok with [the couple]. I wish them a long, happy, holy marriage and a great big Catholic family.

(source: OKC Priest Commits Marriage. Is Removed from Parish.)

I, too, hope that if the final result of this process is laicization and marriage, that there will indeed be a life-long, God-blessed union as a result!  What other hope could we possibly have?

But our sympathy should not make us miss the fact that there is at best a “putative marriage” here, as a priest is not capable of marriage.  A civil certificate (however necessary it may be at some later stage) doesn’t change that.

[This priest] remains a priest until an official process is completed, “but may not exercise his priestly ministry,” Clay said Friday.

(source: Oklahoma City archbishop removes secretly married priest from parish leadership | News OK)

We all struggle.  We all offend.  We all need the healing, salty, searing, Truth who loves us and makes us His–who makes us capable of true love.

Welcome to Lent, friends.

(February 26th) UPDATE: 

The secular press, most of whom know little about faith or religion beyond what they’ve read in the newspapers, refer to [the priest] as “married” and as having “a wife”. Catholics must read things more precisely. [The couple’s] “marriage” is null in at least two ways—and, since only one way is needed to make a marriage completely null, then, this one is null.

First, and most importantly, [the priest’s] ordination (to diaconate, by the way) rendered him incapable of marrying (c.  1087)—unless expressly dispensed for marriage by the Holy See (c. 1078 § 1, 1° and c. 1079) which, of course, never happened. There is no need to inquire further: [His] civil status is married but, in the eyes of the Church, he is not married at all. He seems to be, in fact, in a criminous state (c. 1394 § 1) for having attempted even a civil marriage.

(source: In the Light of the Law | A Canon Lawyer’s Blog)