In the film, A Man for All Seasons, Saint Thomas More, patron of lawyers, sets out the case for limits on power. In this dramatization, the offender is not a malfeasant IRS official, but the Devil himself:

WILLIAM ROPER: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!

SIR THOMAS MORE: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

WILLIAM ROPER: Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that!

SIR THOMAS MORE: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!

St. Thomas More

There is some discussion in legal circles of whether Lerner voided her right to invoke the Fifth Amendment by giving a lengthy statement to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee professing her innocence. Perhaps there is some merit to this claim, but it is better to err on the side of caution. After all, the Fifth Amendment is based on the very same English common law protection that Saint Thomas More himself invoked when compelled to testify that he could not accept a law that placed the king above his conscience. As the saint warns us, the laws that protect the Devil today will also protect us tomorrow.

Indeed, the scandalous activities at the IRS are so broad and so extensive that the truth will most certainly come out. We must not jump to any conclusions about Lerner’s silence, but her actions are a matter of public record. Every email that she received and every memo that she signed will no doubt be released under the Freedom of Information Act and scrutinized for clues to her involvement in the targeting of conservative groups.

If we must resort to abusing the law and distorting its protections to punish Lois Lerner and her accomplices for their evident misdeeds, then we would only vindicate her actions. Instead, we must put our faith in the Constitution. Every word that defends the dignity of our human condition imbues that faded parchment with a sacred and holy aura. That sacred document is the best antidote we have to the Devil that lurks in the hearts of men and women like Lois Lerner.

Columbus in particular was built by immigrants from many different cultures, but many of them shared the common faith of Catholicism. The name of the city itself is a testament to the importance of immigration in American culture. Historians and anthropologists refer to events in the Western Hemisphere as either pre- or post-Columbian because of the impact of his voyages on human migration. Columbus himself was a very devout Catholic, so it would undoubtedly please him to know that the city that bears his name is filled with beautiful Catholic churches built by the people who followed in his footsteps.

Historic Photo of St. Mary Church in Columbus, Date Unknown

One of the more famous neighborhoods in Columbus is the German Village just to the south of downtown. The neighborhood is built on land originally intended for refugees from British Canada who lost everything for supporting the cause of independence. These first immigrants to the Ohio Country later sold the land to Germans who began arriving in the early 19th Century. The ceilings of St. Mary Parish have beautiful artwork with pictorial representations of the Litany of Mary captioned in German Fraktur script.

Farther to the south, other neighborhoods built by Eastern European immigrants around the turn of the last century have fallen on hard times, but are being restored to new life by more recent arrivals. St. Leo Parish in Merion Village no longer serves the local neighborhood, but is now used to offer the only Mass in Korean in the diocese. St. Ladislas Parish in Hungarian Village was merged with Corpus Christi Parish and now is one of many Parishes that offer Mass in Spanish.

To the north of downtown are the remnants of ethnic neighborhoods for the Irish and Italian communities. In the Irish slum that used to be known as “Flytown,” St. Patrick Parish has shamrocks carved in the pews and in stained glass throughout the church. Nearby in the old Italian Village, St. John the Baptist Parish offers Mass in Italian and sponsors the annual Columbus Day parade and Italian heritage festival.

To the east, St. Dominic Parish is located in the heart of the King-Lincoln neighborhood and was originally built by Irish and Italian immigrants, but now serves a predominantly African American community after merging with the now defunct St. Cyprian Parish. Farther to the north and east, St. Matthias Parish is of more recent construction and offers Mass in Nigerian, Brazilian Portuguese, and Haitian Creole French.

People wave a Vatican flag in St. Peter’s Square on the night Pope Francis was elected. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

This virtual tour of ethnic neighborhoods brings to mind the election of Pope Francis, and all the different flags in St. Peters square as people gathered in breathless anticipation of the announcement of the new pope. America is like that every day. We have a duty as Christians to “Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to all creation.” As Americans, we are blessed to have the whole world coming to our door. Unfortunately, in large part due to anti-Catholic and anti-Semitic sentiment, that door does not stand wide open as it did prior to the introduction of quotas in 1924.

In those days, there were no entitlements. Immigrants came to America with nothing but the clothes on their back, but they did not seek government assistance and wouldn’t have gotten any even if they asked for it. Instead, they worked hard for a better life and saved as much money as they could to help build these beautiful old churches as well as hospitals and schools to provide for the needs of their families and of the next wave of immigrants that was to follow behind them. In the debate over immigration reform, we have a duty to pass on this rich legacy and the institutions of the Catholic Church to a new generation.

At the same time the IRS was ramping up its harassment of Tea Party groups in 2011, liberals were outraged and President Obama threatened to veto the debt ceiling legislation when Republicans tried to end public financing of Planned Parenthood’s abortion mills and incessant political advocacy. Even now, Planned Parenthood continues to receive public funding and also operates a 501(c)(4), presumably with private contributions, although accounting gimmicks make this separation highly dubious. Meanwhile, Tea Party groups whose stated mission is to educate citizens about the Bill of Rights and accept only private donations were held to a much higher level of scrutiny.

The contrast is spectacular and revealing: for modern liberalism, abortion is a public good but freedom of speech is not. Obama made this explicit when he told Planned Parenthood, “God bless you” and then went on to tell the graduates of Ohio State to reject the voices that warn that tyranny is just around the corner. If the revelations of the past few days have taught us anything, it is that the phrase “unaccountable bureaucrat” is not just a political cliché, and pace Obama’s assurances, there really is a petty tyrant that is always lurking around the corner of every page of ambiguous and ill-conceived legislation—and ObamaCare is by far the most heinous example.

President Obama claimed in a press conference yesterday that he had no knowledge of the IRS program, but this does not absolve him of responsibility. During his State of the Union address in 2010, President Obama made it clear that he was vehemently opposed to 501(c)(4) organizations engaging in political activity and urged Congress to defy the Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. Perhaps, like the knights who killed Saint Thomas á Beckett after hearing Henry II wish for his death in a fit of rage, the IRS employees were just trying to please their boss.

“Paying the Tax,” by Pieter Brueghel the Younger, c.1620

This should give us pause when we consider the wide-ranging powers granted to the IRS under ObamaCare. Indeed, the landmark ruling of National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius only upheld ObamaCare by interpreting its most onerous provisions as an exercise of the taxing power. Liberal pundits echo Obama’s claim that we have nothing to fear, but they said the same thing about the IRS targeting of Tea Party groups. In this light, the words of the Declaration of Independence reverberate through the centuries as a warning that is just as relevant today, “He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.” The HHS contraceptive and abortifacient mandate is only a foretaste of what is to come.

In the age of Obama, we can no longer hope that the executive branch will exercise prudence and sound judgement in the enforcement of the law. Whenever the law allows for discretion, it also allows for abuse. As far as we know, this scandal is not the product of some Nixonian conspiracy, although the scope and longevity of the IRS program do not reflect well on Obama’s leadership if nobody ever thought to bring it to his attention. As the saying goes, “A fish rots from the head down.”

Most likely, these abuses are simply the result of an incompetent and ineffectual President who despises the citizens that elected him and takes no interest in the task of governing when it does not suit his latest initiative to remake American society. If we can take Obama at his word, the IRS employees were simply left to their own devices without proper oversight. It is only natural that they would follow the example of a President who never misses an opportunity to chastise his conservative opponents and to politicize every function of the government under his control. Sadly, in his peevish aloofness, Obama is the pettiest tyrant of them all.

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Correction Note: the original version of this article referred to the debt ceiling debate as taking place in May 2012 when it was in fact the summer of 2011.

Proponents of same-sex marriage often claim that conservatives and Catholics especially are hypocrites because Jesus loves and forgives everyone, so if we don’t recognize same-sex couples as being equivalent to heterosexuals, we are not properly emulating Jesus. Mainline Protestants and sadly, dissident Catholics, have largely embraced homosexuality based on this flawed logic. There is also a notion that in order to evangelize, we must walk among the lowly and the downtrodden and be one with them. This is only partly true.

“Marriage of the Virgin,” by Rosso Fiorentino, 1523

Jesus spent his public ministry walking, preaching, and healing amongst the poor and the sick. However, the words he gave us are not merely a commentary on the world constrained by the circumstances of that time. The fashions and follies of the world are constantly changing but Jesus was and is the living and eternal word of God made flesh. Jesus did not seek popularity or approval or fame, but spoke the truth. As Christians, we are not called to bring the brokenness of world into the Gospel and to reinterpret it according to our wishes, but rather, we are called to bring the Gospel out into the world which desperately needs to hear it.

Critics often argue that the only references to homosexuality are in the Old Testament, but ironically, the scripture reading from this past Sunday reinforces the traditional definition of marriage when the Apostles wrote to the early Christians, “It is the decision of the Holy Spirit and of us not to place on you any burden beyond these necessities, namely, to abstain from…unlawful marriage.” In this context, the “law” in question is the Law of Moses. It being the Easter Season, the reading is from the New Testament and is in perfect continuity with the many statements made by Jesus regarding adultery and marriage.

When Jesus speaks of man and woman being “joined in one flesh,” this is literally true, for in the act of procreation, man and woman are joined together in body and soul to participate in the creation of a new life. One cannot be pro-life and also support same-sex marriage, because the two concepts are so profoundly inseparable. Every child is the living and breathing expression of the sacred union of man and woman. We cannot separate marriage from procreation without separating procreation from life. Marriage in God’s plan is the source of life. The forces at work in Delaware, Rhode Island, and elsewhere are proudly and happily urging the destruction not just of marriage, but of the sacredness of life itself.

Campbell said earlier in the day that Hale was not fired because of her sexual orientation but because her “quasi-spousal relationship” with another woman violates the church’s moral teaching. He said Hale violated a teacher contract and Roman Catholic Diocese of Columbus policy that prohibits immoral behavior and requires employees to follow general church tenets.

In an exclusive interview with The Dispatch, the bishop said diocesan officials “don’t necessarily go looking for things like that,” but Hale’s decision to name her partner in her mother’s obituary made the relationship public and initiated the termination process.

As bishop, he said, he has a “fundamental responsibility” to maintain the Catholic identity of the institutions under his purview.

“We do this in an atmosphere of care, of calm consideration, but yet out of the realization that at particular times we have to make particular decisions,” he said. “And they are difficult sometimes, but they do flow from what we believe, who we are and how we are to live.”

His Excellency, The Most Rev. Frederick Campbell, Bishop of Columbus (Catholic News Agency File Photo)

Unfortunately this is not the last word on the matter. According to the Columbus NBC affiliate, WCMH Channel 4, Hale’s attorney has formally filed a criminal complaint against the Diocese of Columbus which carries a possible penalty of up to six months in jail and has no exemption for religious organizations. That Bishop Campbell waited until now to speak publicly on the matter is evidence of how agonizing and heartbreaking this must be for him to see a former employee now lashing out against the Church.

In a bizarre side-story, an angry parent was escorted from a charity dinner with the Bishop after an outburst this past weekend. WCMH Channel 4 reports that John Petrucci supports Hale’s dismissal but was concerned about the violent threats that have been directed at Bishop Watterson High School. In response to the confrontation, a spokesman for the Diocese issued the following statement:

“During last evening’s dinner for diocesan ‘Bishop Annual Appeal’ contributors, an attendee, immediately prior to Bishop Campbell’s address, abruptly stood and began speaking regarding Carla Hale in a manner that was not understood or heard by many in attendance. While speaking, he began moving toward the Bishop in a way that concerned many in the audience.  Several attendees thought it necessary to intervene on the Bishop’s behalf, asked the man to leave, and escorted him from the event.  No extraordinary force was either required or applied in this process.

“Bishop Campbell is aware of the passions that have surrounded the Carla Hale issue and is deeply concerned about the anxiety and alarm it has created within our community.  He encourages all on either side of this subject to maintain civility and calm while the grievance process in this case moves forward.”

Given the threats that Petrucci is rightly concerned about, it is understandable that some in the audience may have thought he was a supporter of Hale. The attack on Belgian Archbishop Leonard is one recent example of the anger and hatred that is directed against the Catholic Church. The hacker group “Anonymous” has also issued threats against employees of the diocese. There will surely be worse to come for any who have the courage to defend the truth. Petrucci’s outburst illustrates how easily emotions and passions can overwhelm reason and good judgment. We must choose our words and our actions carefully.

Bishop Campbell and all who share his steadfastness will be called uncompassionate, intolerant, and hypocritical for holding fast to unpopular beliefs. However, we must remember that that love and compassion demand that we make sacrifices for the good of others. Carla Hale’s supporters who call for the Church to violate eternal truths have forgotten that compassion is not just about giving unconditionally, but that sometimes correction is needed when we go astray. The Bishop’s crozier is a reminder of this sacred duty not only to keep his sheep in the fold, but also as a rod to defend from wolves when the time comes.

Until these most recent development, the media coverage of this story has been entirely focused on Carla Hale’s supporters. However, members of the public who support Bishop Campbell and the Dioceses for upholding the Catholic faith have quietly begun to mobilize. A group of parents and students of Bishop Watterson High School has started a petition to offer prayers and encouragement to the Bishop and the Diocese. In the tribulations that lie ahead, they will need our help and our sacrifices.

LifeSiteNews reports that the terms of employment which were approved by the union that represents Carla Hale explicitly forbid this kind of posturing: “A contract may be terminated at any time for gross inefficiency or immorality, for serious unethical conduct, or for willful and/or persistent violations of reasonable regulations of the school or the Diocesan Office of Catholic Schools.” Many disagree with the Catholic Church regarding the morality of same-sex unions, but surely they cannot disagree that lying to your employer for 19 years and then abruptly denouncing them in public is grossly immoral and seriously unethical.

Only royal trumpeters should toot their own horn. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

The Catholic Church teaches that people with homosexual feelings fully deserve human dignity and compassion. However, the media frenzy that Hale is all too happy to keep feeding is the very definition of willful and persistent violation of Catholic teaching. In the Gospel, Jesus admonishes his disciples against such public displays, “When you give alms, do not blow a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets to win the praise of others. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward.”

Meanwhile, the principal and other employees of the school have received threatening emails and phone calls from Hale’s supporters. From Hale’s handling of this case, it is clear she is aggressively pushing an agenda that goes beyond simply getting her job back. Even if the school wanted to bring her back, how could they possibly do so now with the media circus and angry mob following on her heels? Far from being contrite and resolving to sin no more, Hale is poisoning whatever sympathy might have remained for her from her former employer.

The invective and demagoguery surrounding this case is typical. All who defend Catholic teaching are derided as hypocrites, bigots, and simply mean-spirited. How wounding these criticisms must be to the heart of Bishop Campbell and the employees of the Diocese of Columbus and Watterson High School who so deeply love the Church and seek the best for all God’s children. Pray for them. Write them a letter to show your support. Thank them for their steadfastness and their courage in defense of the Catholic faith. Unlike Hale, these good servants of God’s people do not seek earthly recognition, but it couldn’t hurt to let them know they are not alone amidst the storm and fury of anti-Catholic persecution which is becoming so fashionable in our time.

There is also the possibility that this case could end up in the Supreme Court, as the unanimous decision in the Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC case specifically leaves open the possibility of subsequent litigation for breach of contract. However, one has to wonder whether a contract based on a 19-year lie could still be valid. The Dispatch article does not state whether the school knew Hale was a lesbian and perhaps had some informal agreement with her provided she kept it quiet, but if so, the concealment on Hale’s part would only be more damning. Neither the school nor the diocese should be punished for trying to right the situation.

Bishop Campbell’s diocese is being sued for upholding Catholic teaching. (AP Photo/Paul Vernon)

An analogous scenario would be a bank manager discovering that one of her employees has been robbing banks, or a police chief discovering that one of his officers has been dealing drugs on the side for the past 20 years. Carla Hale clearly opposes Catholic teaching, so how can she possibly be a Catholic teacher? The Catholic Church is often accused of hypocrisy, but what could be more hypocritical than allowing a teacher to publicly contradict the Catholic faith?

Catholic schools entrust their teachers with a special responsibility to provide spiritual formation and act as role models for their impressionable charges. Not so long ago, most if not all teachers at Catholic schools were consecrated religious. Carla Hale is not even Catholic, but is a practicing Methodist. There is nothing wrong with ecumenism, but faithful Catholic parents have every right to expect that teachers at a Catholic school should be faithful ministers of the Gospel and witnesses to Christ in both their public and private lives.

Nevertheless, Hale has found a deep well of vocal support from partisans on the left. At time of writing, an online petition for her reinstatement had over 10,000 signatures. In times of persecution, there is always an angry mob that thinks it is in the right. Popular opinion claims to be loudly and fiercely opposed to any form of intolerance as a matter of principle, but this apparently does not include intolerance of faithful Catholics.

The more we are persecuted, the more we must pray that Bishop Campbell, and indeed all of us will have the strength to bear the cross. As the motto of the Carthusian order reminds us, “Stat crux dum volvitur orbis.” The Cross is steady while the world is turning. We must hold fast to the cross, because the world around us is not going to stop. We must remember as the cross grows heavier, it is because we still believe we are standing on solid ground, when in truth, the cross is all that is solid and eternal.

This strange media silence is contrasted with the constant outcry that we must protect our children from any number of other social ills. The Newtown Massacre, the Steubenville Rape Case, the fight against childhood obesity, and the call for an end to bullying—especially of adolescent homosexuals—have all been the subject of a furious national debate with even President Obama himself joining the clamor with his own paternalistic invective.

Thanks to modern medicine, babies are able to receive medical care that can even treat life-threatening conditions within the womb. Expectant mothers are given a stringent regimen of vitamins, exercises, and checkups while at the same time being exhorted to follow a constantly growing and seemingly endless list of things to avoid. Even the most ardent abortion-loving radical feminist wants to have a strong and healthy baby, after all.

Apollyon, “The Destroyer”

In the midst of all this sound and fury, we are told that Gosnell’s practices and abortion more generally must be left as a private “decision” between the “patient” and her doctor. [N.B., in our culture of death, the sacred gift of motherhood is viewed as a disease, and the unwilling mother is merely a patient.] Abortion activists will defend Gosnell as an angel of mercy for disposing of these supposedly unwanted babies. In their perverted morality, the murder of infants is an act of charity for the poor and the weak who would have otherwise been driven to far more desperate straits—although it is hard to imagine what could be worse than murdering one’s children.

Then again, it may not be that hard to imagine after all, for history gives us a shocking example of what this logic leads to. According to Wikipedia:

…in late 1938, Adolf Hitler instructed his personal physician Karl Brandt to evaluate a family’s petition for the “mercy killing” of their blind, physically and developmentally disabled infant boy. The boy was eventually killed in July 1939. Hitler also instructed Brandt to proceed in the same manner in similar cases. The foundation of the Reich Committee for the Scientific Registering of Hereditary and Congenital Illnesses in order to prepare and proceed with the massive secret killing of infants took place in May 1939 and the respective secret order to start the registration of ill children, took place on 18 August 1939, three weeks after the murder of the mentioned boy.

From there, it was all too easy for the Nazis to move from the murder of children to the extermination of the whole of European Jewry. The state-sanctioned murder of a child by the Nazis was in July of 1939. The infamous Auschwitz concentration camp was first opened in May of 1940. When a culture embraces the conceit that the state can decide that the most frail and most innocent no longer deserve to live, it is a frighteningly short step from Dr. Gosnell to Dr. Mengele, who earned his nickname the “Angel of Death” for the white lab-coat he wore while sending Jewish prisoners to their death in the gas chambers.

Fortunately we still have some notion of due process in this country to protect the lives of the innocent from such a fate, but as this case amply proves, those protections are not nearly strong enough for the unborn, the elderly, and the disabled. If there is even a faint glimmer of truth in the allegations against Gosnell, any punishment which can be meted out in this world is far too generous and merciful given the heinous and gruesome depravity of his crimes. In the end, the awesome justice of God in heaven may be the greatest rebuke, for in His infinite mercy God knows that even a person as truly wretched and vile as Kermit Gosnell still deserved to live.

“He created them male and female and blessed them.” Genesis 5:2

Tax returns are due next week, which is a potent reminder of just what is at stake. One of the many arguments in favor of same-sex marriage is that gay and lesbian couples should enjoy the same tax benefits as heterosexuals. Homosexuals should be careful what they wish for, because for many dual-income households, taxes are actually higher than if they were single. The big tax savings for married couples is from having children.

Barring infertility, heterosexuals have the advantage that they can make one child after another whenever they please whereas same-sex couples must go through the lengthy and expensive process of adoption or surrogacy. If marriage is a basic right, any law discriminating in favor of heterosexual marriage would violate that right. On these grounds, any tax benefit for children would have to be unconstitutional because it would unfairly punish same-sex couples.

This is not a slippery slope. This is not even just another argument that same-sex marriage proponents are already using. This is being proposed as a law in California now. Before Hollingsworth v. Perry (Proposition 8) has even been decided, the liberals have already moved on to the next battle. No matter how strenuously proponents of same-sex marriage deny it, marriage is about having children, and the law must recognize this fact one way or the other.

Children are the reason marriage exists. It is through the act of procreation that a man and woman are joined in both body and soul to participate in the miracle of new life. We may be labeled as bigots and intolerant for defending this truth, but any law which recognizes “equality” of same-sex couples will have to contend with this basic fact of our existence. Once marriage is redefined as a right, any distinction of that right will violate the principle of equality which is so bitterly sought today.

Included in the document is a complete reversal of the Church’s teaching on the ordination of women to the priesthood and even to the apostolic succession. In a deeply personal decision, Pope Francis will also reveal to the world that he plans to officiate the first gay wedding later this month.

When asked about these far reaching changes to long-held Church doctrine, the Vatican official who spoke with Catholic Vote on condition of strict anonymity in order not to pre-empt the Pope’s announcement said, “Pope Francis was elected with a mandate to bring the Church into the modern era, so these developments are only the beginning.”