Is the Sin of Abortion Calling Down God’s Chastisement on America

Is the Sin of Abortion Calling Down God’s Chastisement on America?

January 22, 2011 marked the 38^th anniversary of the Roe vs. Wade decision of 1973. Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun wrote the majority opinion for the 7-2 decision in the case against the state of Texas which made abortion legal in the United States during the first 6 months (22 weeks) of pregnancy, claiming a non-viable fetus, one that cannot survive outside the womb, is not a human person and therefore has no rights and protection under the law. It denied states the right to make their own abortion laws but did allow states the right to continue to restrict abortion during the last trimester when, according to them, the fetus was viable outside the womb and was therefore considered a human person protected under the law, but Roe vs. Wade still made exceptions in that last trimester when the mother’s life was at risk.

The Court had to determine if the “right” to choose to terminate a pregnancy was indeed a fundamental right protected by the Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution. Since Roe vs. Wade was a suit against Texas’ abortion laws and attorneys admitted that common law practice allowed for abortion in certain cases, particularly rape and incest, Justice Blackmun concluded it therefore could be considered a protected liberty. Since modern medicine has made abortion safe he also concluded there is no reason to continue abortion laws aimed primarily at protecting women’s health. Justice Blackmun asserted abortion is a fundamental right under the U.S. Constitution and prohibiting abortion by state law would violate the Due Process Clause of the 14^th Amendment whereby the state could not deny a woman’s decision to terminate a pregnancy by making it a private matter between her and her doctor. Chief Justice Burger, one of the 7 who voted in favor of Roe vs. Wade, stated (410 U.S. 209) that “Plainly, the Court today rejects any claim that the Constitution requires abortions on demand.” Years later Justice Blackmun admitted that Roe vs. Wade could be overturned by defining legally the personhood of the infant in the womb which would give the pre-born child protection under the law. There is currently a movement in Congress to pass The Life at Conception Act which corresponds to Church teaching from the earliest days of the Catholic Church to the present day.

Let us look now at the Roe vs. Wade decision, an example of Positive or man-made law, in terms of Divine Law, both Natural and Moral, and in terms of the teaching of the Catholic Church and the message of Lady of America®. Authentic private revelation can never contradict Divine Revelation or Church doctrine.

THE CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, #’s1954 through 1959 states that the Natural Law is universal, is engraved in the soul of every human person and leads him to do good and to avoid evil. It asserts the incomparable dignity and worth of the human person and is the basis for the person’s fundamental human rights and duties. It is immutable and permanent and transcends the variations of history. It is the Creator’s work and is the solid foundation for man’s individual and communal moral choices and the necessary basis for civil law.

In #’s 1950-1951 of the Catechism Moral Law is defined as the work of Divine Wisdom, fatherly instruction outlining the conduct that leads to beatitude with God or separation from God and one’s own destiny. All law is a rule of conduct enacted by competent authority for the sake of the common good. The moral law presupposes a rational order established among creatures for their common good and for the attainment of their final end, union with the Creator. Hence, all civil law hinges necessarily upon both the natural and moral law established by God. Our fundamental rights do not come from man nor a Constitution but from God Himself who has written them into our very human nature and right reason. Thomas Jefferson, in writing our Declaration of Independence, acknowledged that Supreme Authority from which all law and all fundamental rights flow when he wrote:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

We cannot subjectively judge people; only God can, but we must objectively judge human thought and behavior. Objectively speaking, abortion is grave sin against the Natural Law for it is irrational and unnatural for human beings to destroy their own offspring; to destroy any human life, especially the most innocent and helpless life in the womb; and it is out of order for a creature to disobey the order established by the Creator. Abortion pits one person’s perceived right against another’s true right and threatens the common good and the continuation of the human family. It is objectively sin against the Moral Law’s Fifth Commandment in the taking of another’s life and most often is a sin also against the Sixth Commandment involving sexual sins against purity and chastity in fornication and/or adultery. Even in marriage abortion can result from a false love wherein one spouse violates the dignity of the other person by using the other for his or her own pleasure, making the person an object of exploitation. Abortion may also occur in marriage due to the failure of spouses to be open to life in the marriage act, putting the secondary aspect of marriage’s pleasure above the primary one of procreation, failing to put reason and spirit over flesh and passion, and failing to accept the natural consequence of the marriage act they chose to engage in. Abortion used as a method of birth control or population control is likewise a sin against both natural and moral law.

In Evangelium Vitae, The Gospel of Life, Pope John Paul II stated:

Whatever is opposed to life itself, such as any type of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia, or willful self-destruction, whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, torments inflicted on body or mind, attempts to coerce the will itself; whatever insults human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and children; as well as disgraceful working conditions, where people are treated as mere instruments of gain rather than as free and responsible persons; all these things and others like them are infamies indeed. They poison human society, and they do more harm to those who practice them than to those who suffer from the injury. Moreover, they are a supreme dishonour to the Creator". (#’s 3 and 5.)

Today there exists a great multitude of weak and defenseless human beings, unborn children in particular, whose fundamental right to life is being trampled upon.

In speaking of Cain’s murder of his brother Abel and the blood of Abel crying out to heaven for justice, His Holiness writes:

But God cannot leave the crime unpunished: from the ground on which it has been spilt, the blood of the one murdered demands that God should render justice (cf. Gen 37:26; Is 26:21; Ez 24:7-8). From this text the Church has taken the name of the "sins which cry to God for justice", and, first among them, she has included wilful murder. ¹² For the Jewish people, as for many peoples of antiquity, blood is the source of life. Indeed "the blood is the life" (Dt 12:23), and life, especially human life, belongs only to God: for this reason whoever attacks human life, in some way attacks God himself. (#9)

He addresses the large scale systematic attacks upon life being approved in the legal and medical sectors of our society today. Statistics record over 50 million abortions in the United States alone since Roe vs. Wade, 50 million innocent babies whose blood cries out to heaven for justice!

The twentieth century will have been an era of massive attacks on life, an endless series of wars and a continual taking of innocent human life. False prophets and false teachers have had the greatest success".¹⁵ …We are in fact faced by an objective "conspiracy against life", involving even international Institutions, engaged in encouraging and carrying out actual campaigns to make contraception, sterilization and abortion widely available. Nor can it be denied that the mass media are often implicated in this conspiracy, by lending credit to that culture which presents recourse to contraception, sterilization, abortion and even euthanasia as a mark of progress and a victory of freedom, while depicting as enemies of freedom and progress those positions which are unreservedly pro-life. (#17)

To claim the right to abortion, infanticide and euthanasia, and to recognize that right in law, means to attribute to human freedom a perverse and evil significance: that of an absolute power over others and against others. This is the death of true freedom…Nothing and no one can in any way permit the killing of an innocent human being, whether a fetus or an embryo, an infant or an adult, an old person, or one suffering from an incurable disease, or a person who is dying. Furthermore, no one is permitted to ask for this act of killing, either for himself or herself or for another person entrusted to his or her care, nor can he or she consent to it, either explicitly or implicitly. Nor can any authority legitimately recommend or permit such an action".⁵²

The Second Vatican Council defined abortion and infanticide as “unspeakable crime.” Contrary to the Roe vs. Wade decision, Pope John Paul II makes it clear that no relativistic or euphemistic language like “viability of the fetus” or “right to privacy” used in this decision or “intrusion of the fetus to a woman’s body” or “it’s my body and I can do what I want with it” used by those with false teaching to promote the “culture of death” can justify any human law denying the personhood of the child in the womb. A person’s body is NOT “my” body; every creature belongs to the Creator and is His temple, for God alone has the Supreme Authority over life to appoint when one is to be born and when one is to die. His temple must not be desecrated. Each person is a sign of the living God, an icon of Jesus Christ!

…"From the time that the ovum is fertilized, a life is begun which is neither that of the father nor the mother; it is rather the life of a new human being with his own growth. It would never be made human if it were not human already. This has always been clear, and ... modern genetic science offers clear confirmation. …The human being is to be respected and treated as a person from the moment of conception; and therefore from that same moment his rights as a person must be recognized, among which in the first place is the inviolable right of every innocent human being to life".⁵⁹^…The killing of innocent human creatures, even if carried out to help others, constitutes an absolutely unacceptable act.

All legitimate authority comes from God; therefore civil law must conform to divine law. Pope John Paul II quotes Saint Thomas Aquinas and then continues:

… "human law is law inasmuch as it is in conformity with right reason and thus derives from the eternal law. But when a law is contrary to reason, it is called an unjust law; but in this case it ceases to be a law and becomes instead an act of violence.⁹⁶^…Every law made by man can be called a law insofar as it derives from the natural law. But if it is somehow opposed to the natural law, then it is not really a law but rather a corruption of the law".⁹⁷

“Abortion and euthanasia are thus crimes which no human law can claim to legitimize. There is no obligation in conscience to obey such laws; instead there is a grave and clear obligation to oppose them by conscientious objection. …In the case of an intrinsically unjust law, such as a law permitting abortion or euthanasia, it is therefore never licit to obey it, or to "take part in a propaganda campaign in favour of such a law, or vote for it".⁹⁸^{#73 …}To refuse to take part in committing an injustice is not only a moral duty; it is also a basic human right.”

It is the duty of the Catholic Church to teach and defend Divine Law which is always superior to human law. It states clearly that human life begins at the moment of conception and must be protected from that moment of conception until the moment of natural death. It must vehemently protest the human rights violations against the pre-born child, especially as regards the most inhumane and cruel methods of abortion—saline solutions that burn the infant’s body, suction which tears apart that tiny body, and partial birth abortion which literally brings the baby alive from the womb and then punctures the brain and destroys the body. Modern science confirms the truth of the pain inflicted upon the infant in the womb. We prosecute people for such cruelty to animals and chastise nations who use such cruelty against human beings, but we legalize it against helpless, innocent infants and falsely claim it is an intrinsic right. Reason itself cries out against such evil thought and deeds, such contradiction!

The 20^th century which Pope John Paul II called the most evil in the history of mankind is the one into which Our Lady has appeared around the world in unprecedented numbers, calling us to a reform of life and back to Faith and Purity so that we might once again know the peace that can only come from within through union with the Divine Indwelling of the Most Holy Trinity, the source of all holiness, truth and life. The 20th century followed upon the Industrial Revolution of the late 19^th century which began to sacrifice the dignity and worth of the human person to that of the machine and productivity and greed. It saw two World Wars and the rise of Fascism, Naziism and Communism and their doctrines of atheism, socialism and totalitarian attempts to secularize society into an “abyss of evil,” without God and Our Lady’s loving maternal care. (Words from the Prayer to the Immaculate Conception.) The 20^th century also saw a rise in nihilism, subjectivism, relativism, secularism, humanism, the deification of science and the creation of weapons of mass murder, genetic manipulations and an ensuing “culture of death” with unjust laws that reverse both the natural and the moral order. We now call what is wrong right and what is right wrong. We see this in the increasing movement to legalize all forms of sexual perversion, falsely claiming they are intrinsic rights when all we have just stated proves otherwise.

Is the sin of abortion calling down God’s chastisement on America?

Although these words are not stated per se in the Diary of messages from Our Lady of America©, Sister Mildred (Mary Ephrem) Neuzil was adamant in making that statement to those around her during her life. The locutions and appearances of Our Lady of America® over 40+ years began after World War I and the Great Depression of the 1930’s and during the years of World War II. They were prior to the Second Vatican Council which was held from October 11, 1962 through December 8, 1965. They were prior to the flux of priests and religious out of the consecrated life and the increase in the divorce rate, breakdown of marriage and family life, the sexual revolution, the rise in immodest dress, pornography and recreational sex that soon would rob our children of their innocence at early ages as evil forces attempted to belittle the virtues of purity, chastity and virginity and the proper respect for parental authority in the home. These same evil forces already had an evil eye toward the economy of abortion. Is it any wonder then that Our Lady, while favoring America with her visit under the title of our country and promising us great miracles of the soul if we honor her as she desires, would also address the sinfulness of our generation with such repeated warnings and pleadings? Had she not appeared at Fatima early in the 20^th century and warned that more souls go to hell for sins against purity than any other sin? Our Lady of America® is urgently asking America to live up to the honor we portend in claiming her as our Patroness under the title of her Purity, her Immaculate Conception, by becoming THE nation dedicated to her Purity, becoming her army of chaste soldiers willing to fight to the death to preserve the purity of our souls and to accept the mandate from heaven to lead the world in this much needed reform of life back to Faith and Purity and Peace.

That God is chastising America and the world for its sinfulness is evident to any person of Faith, but why is Sister Mildred so forceful in using abortion as the reason for God’s chastisement? In reality, all sin is traced back to the impurity of our hearts that refuse to obey God’s ways and the correct hierarchy of values and authority He established. Impurity of heart leads to the impurity of the mind and false teaching and error from which flow heresy and sin and the inverted moral order and impurity of sexual behavior. Our most precious natural gift from God is life and our most fundamental human right is the right to life itself and to the protection of that right from the first moment of conception to the moment of natural death. Abortion attacks that most fundamental right and dignity of the human person from which all other rights flow and does so at its very beginning, at the moment of its greatest vulnerability and powerlessness to defend itself against the very ones whom nature itself binds to protect it. As Pope John Paul II says, it is a corruption of law, an absolutely unacceptable act, a dishonor to God and reason, an unspeakable crime and lack of true freedom and conscience, both the individual and the social conscience. It is an act of violence!

While neither Our Lady nor Our Lord cite abortion itself, the sin which they address as unnatural acts that are erroneously called intrinsic rights in the name of love, certainly implies and includes it. God gives us the guidelines and we are to find the details in the teachings of Scripture and the Church. The Catholic Church is the sacrament of the living Presence of Christ on earth; it is His voice in the world today. We have certainly cited enough of the Church’s teachings on divine law and the fundamental and intrinsic rights of the human person for us to draw all the proper conclusions. We can rationally assume Sister Mildred was led to focus on abortion because it is the center and starting point for all issues on the sanctity of life, the dignity and worth of the human person, whose protection demands a purity of heart and mind and soul befitting the noble, nearly divine nature God bestowed on us. Let us reflect on Our Lord’s and Our Lady’s words.

Many unnatural acts are being committed in the name of love. This evil is being disguised and tolerated as an intrinsic right like any other. Even some of My priests and consecrated virgins are being caught up into this web of evil, not realizing its terrible consequences. … there are those in high places in the Church who disobey and refuse respect to my Son’s Vicar on earth. These betray the teachings inspired by the Divine Spirit sent by my Son to be with the Church ‘til the end of time. …There are those who teach false doctrines, and those who repudiate the Holy Sacraments. They are filled with intellectual pride. And so refusing to follow my humble Son, they are being destroyed together with those who misguidedly follow them down the path of error and falsehood.” (Diary, Pgs 40-43.)

Every covenant has two parts—blessing for obedience and curse for disobedience. Many want to focus on Our Lady’s favor to the exclusion of her warnings of untold punishment if we do not obey those warnings. If the blood of one man, Abel, could cry out to heaven for justice, how much more must the blood of 50 million innocent babies in America’s legalized “massacre of the holy innocents” cry out to heaven for justice. The day after Our Lady appeared to Sister Mildred in the new image of her favor she appeared holding the world in her hands as she wept over it and pleaded with us to cleanse our souls in the Blood of Jesus and to come to her to learn the purity of heart that is so pleasing to God. She reminded us that we are in the spiritual battle of our lives as she called us to be her army of chaste soldiers ready to fight to the death to preserve the purity of our souls.

“I come to you, O children of America, as a last resort. I plead with you to listen to my voice. Cleanse your souls in the Precious Blood of My Son. …Be my army of chaste soldiers, ready to fight to the death to preserve the purity of your souls. I am the Immaculate One, Patroness of your land. Be my faithful children as I have been your faithful Mother.” (Diary, Pg. 12.)

“My beloved daughter, what I am about to tell you concerns in a particular way my children in America. Unless they do penance by mortification and self-denial and thus reform their lives, God will visit them with punishments hitherto unknown to them. …My dear child, either you will do as I desire and reform your lives, or God Himself will need to cleanse you in the fires of untold punishment. … Oh, if you knew the punishment I am holding back from you by my pleading and intercession on your behalf. … My Son’s patience will not last forever. Help me hold back His anger which is about to descend on sinful and ungrateful men. Suffering and anguish, such as never before experienced, is about to overtake mankind. It is the darkest hour. … Help me save those who will not save themselves. Help me bring once again the sunshine of God’s peace upon the world. … Reform of life is what I ask as the sign and proof of my children’s love for me. … Come to me, my children, come to me and learn. … Do not disregard the voice of your Mother. It is the voice of love trying to save you from eternal ruin. (Diary, Pgs. 15-21.)

“Dear child, unless the United States accepts and carries out faithfully the mandate given to it by heaven to lead the world to peace, there will come upon it and all nations a great havoc of war and incredible suffering. If, however, the United States is faithful to this mandate from heaven and yet fails in the pursuit of peace because the rest of the world will not accept or co-operate then the United States will not be burdened with the punishment about to fall.” (Diary, Nov. 22, 1980, Pg. 38.)

On February 11, 1981 Sister Mildred stated it is evident that the Forces of Evil are enveloping the world and their hatred is particularly focused on the United States because of the Divine Mandate given to it to lead the world to peace. (Diary, Pg. 39.)

“O my children, you still aren’t listening. I see the destruction coming but you do not believe me. You can stem this tide of suffering if you at last do as I’ve been asking of you for so long. Renew your hearts, your spirits, by seeking and following the light of the Holy Spirit within yourselves and in the teachings of Holy Church.” (Diary, Pg. 44.)

Is the sin of abortion calling down God’s chastisement on America? You be the judge!