Letter Sent to 50 Shepherds of the Church in the U.S.A.

[ For letter and list of bishops, see Letter to Shepherds ]

October 26, 2008

Your Eminence Cardinal George - President of the Bishops Conference, 

Please let me introduce you to Defending Our Father’s House, a national Catholic vision and leadership organization whose mission is to establish the legal and institutional integrity of marriage and family in order to provide safeguards for married couples, families and children, and for our society overall.

At this time, we are a group of 18 professionals dedicated to supporting marriage and family. We are 16 Roman Catholics, one Anglican and one Presbyterian. Some of us are also involved in interfaith work centering on the foundational issue of marriage. We are reaching out to Christian denominations as well as Jews, Muslims and others who worship Our Father.

Our organization is made up of those with expertise in constitutional law, marriage law, legal history, international economics, health insurance, moral investments, the needs of military families, psycho-social research, clinical psychology, canon law, medical care, political science, Catholic Hispanic leadership, community marriage policy, journalism and political science, to name a few. 

Together, we are pooling accumulated interdisciplinary knowledge and experience to formulate a comprehensive plan that addresses the historical shortfalls undermining marriage. Our plan, which is already well developed, continues to grow as we incorporate new information. We are eager to use our talents in the Service of the Lord.

We have come together in faith and mutual concern: Our Nation, the United States of America, is collapsing!

What sets Defending Our Father’s House apart from other groups is that our service to the Kingdom of God follows a particular model of leadership that Christ provided – as a 12 year old boy and as a 33 year old man defending His Father’s House with specific actions in the Temple. Our team draws from this model to address concerns that others avoid. 

At this time, we are witnessing the “most expensive social-issue election in the history of the country” in which the forces supporting a redefinition of marriage have invested millions of dollars in “mammon” to defeat California’s Proposition 8. “Marriage” is facing the firing squad and soon it will be too late. 

The “execution” began in 1969, when California wiped out over one hundred years of legal protections encoded in the law, in particular, “adultery,” as a ground for divorce. Now, any married person can sever his or her marital ties in California because no legal basis is needed. Divorce has become an “at-will” option which puts traditional marriage in the same category as same-sex “marriage” – marriage no longer has any real meaning.

Adultery as defined in Black’s Law Dictionary is “sexual intercourse” which would not include the intimate activities of same-sex couples. Therefore, by eliminating this ground, marriage became neutral territory, opening the door to other dyadic options. When we only address one part of the defense of marriage, we are doing an incomplete job. That is why we feel such a great urgency to meet with you and present this fuller picture of what the defense of marriage must mean. 

In the Sermon on the Mount, Our Lord said, “And everyone who listens to these words of mine but does not act on them will be like a fool who built his house on sand.” The fool is our own American Bar Association (ABA) that undermined the Institution of Marriage in such a fundamental way that it opened the door to what is happening now. The time has come to address this other part of marriage “defense”, beginning with calling to account the Catholic attorneys who earn a living destroying families by day and on Sundays show up to offer the sign of Peace and to receive Holy Communion. 

In 1858, lawyer and faithful Bible scholar, Abraham Lincoln, addressed his supporters, quoting Mark 3:25

“A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

In his prophetic wisdom, our 16th President looked out at America and saw it divided over the issue of slavery. Some Americans wanted to maintain the institution of slavery for financial gain and some found it morally reprehensible. 

At issue was fidelity to the Founding Values of our Nation, and Lincoln’s deft use of language and subliminal inference directed the listener to the words of Jesus. His speech addressed the incongruities of slavery by saying that Americans could not serve both God and mammon, but needed to decide which it would be – a nation of free people, or one allowing slavery.

He saw a fundamental injustice in letting each state decide for or against slavery while his opposition defended the right to own slaves as a “sacred” right. Using this very same argument, on October 10, 2008 the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled that same-sex marriage is a “sacred” right. 

Again, as it was for Our Savior Jesus Christ and for his beloved Apostle Paul, the issue was the law, with the machinations of men ruling over the natural laws of the Creator, Our Father. Abraham Lincoln twice faced former Illinois Supreme Court Justice Stephen A. Douglas – in the 1858 Illinois Senate race he lost and again in the 1860 presidential race in which he finally prevailed. Then as now it was a contest between fidelity and brokenness.

The Connecticut Supreme Court Justices’ language spoke of marriage in the highest regard for many reasons, recognizing it’s historical contributions to mankind and acknowledging it as a fundamental liberty right, essential to the pursuit of happiness. For these reasons, they claimed that the rights of marriage could not be denied to same-sex couples.

Nowhere in this decision did anyone address the rights of children, vulnerable human beings entering the world through the miracle of life, the very purpose and fruit of marriage, to be safeguarded in their lives and development, to be loved and nurtured by their two complementary parents who conceived them through their act of procreation. 

Here again, judges were denying any debt to the Creator, defying nature, and basing their arguments on relativistic rights that uphold the narcissistic urges of individuals over the natural justice owed to other stakeholders in the institution of marriage. For though many in this country may deny the existence of a God, a just society must, at the very least, function as if God does indeed exist, because so many of its citizens live their lives with a fundamental belief in God. 

Lincoln knew exactly what he wanted to communicate for the historical record. The “scribes” – the lawyers of the day – accused Christ of being possessed by the Lord of Evil, Beelzebub, for his faithfulness to God in loving his fellow man. Christ asked, “How can Satan drive out Satan?” Now the guardians of the law – our judges – would convince us there is justice in violating natural law, because they argue that marriage is sacred for homosexual men and women, even though they can never conceive children naturally. 

Do you know the story of how, between 1965 and 1973, the “guardians of our laws” met in the shadows and conspired to find a way to remove all of the traditional safeguards from marriage: the one-man / one-woman relationship that originated in Genesis some 3500 years ago? In violation of the guarantees promised in our U.S. Constitution, the ABA undermined the institution of marriage, replacing it with the institution of divorce, never for a moment considering the sacredness of what they were destroying, nor the impact it would have on children for generations to come. 

In 1858, Lincoln was describing a House that divided North against South, but today, America’s new ‘civil war’ places the fault line between female and male, both outside and within the home, tearing the heart out of the one-flesh union. Surely, a nation founded on institutional infidelity such as practiced by the Bar, can only collapse and be completely ruined when the rain falls and the floods come.

The marriage crisis today is far greater than that of the challenge pressed by homosexuals who want to be allowed to ‘marry.’ For the survival of the Roman Catholic Church, the demise of marriage is a far worse scandal than the early homosexual / pedophile tragedy that nearly brought down our beloved Church. 

When members of the Bar maneuvered No-Fault Divorce into every state in the Union they extinguished over 100 years of safeguards without holding any public hearings or giving consideration to the long-term ramifications upon the Rule of Law, upon the guarantees provided by the US Constitution, upon the unalienable rights endowed by the Creator, upon the economy and security of the nation, and most poignantly upon this nation’s children. 

Since that time, more than 43 million ‘dissolutions of marriage’ have been granted, with many millions of them Catholic marriages. Over 30 million children are casualties of unilateral, state-imposed, divorce-on-demand and many millions more of out-of-wedlock births. This is a tragedy of historic, mass injustice, tightly and purposefully intertwined with the injustice of abortion that has resulted in 50 million nascent lives sacrificed. 

The time has come to expose this holocaust so that our families, communities, and nation will finally see what was done. It is time to begin the care and protection of marriage and family in a renewal that can dramatically surpass that which existed before. 

Defending Our Father’s House is ready to help lead the way in re-establishing the institution of marriage in our society. Through the inspiration of our Lord and Savior in defending His Father’s House and in fidelity to the Eucharistic covenant between Christ and his Church, which is marriage, we are ready to light the way. 

America will light the way for all nations in safeguarding marriage, family and the parent-child relationship.

We request an opportunity to meet with you as soon as possible to address this most-urgent matter and to share with you all that we envision.

Our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI came to America in April of 2008 to light the torch of Hope, a hope he described so eloquently in his first encyclical on Love, and reinforced in his second encyclical on Hope. He spoke of fidelity. The power of the Holy Spirit is now working through our previous beloved Holy Father John Paul the Great, and our current Holy Father Benedict XVI, the spiritual rock placed in our midst by our Lord Jesus Christ.

Your Eminence, on behalf of your servants who are part of Defending Our Father’s House, I await word on how we may begin. 

Your Servant In Christ,

Michael T. Ross, MD
President, Defending Our Father’s House
Holy Name Council # 14018 
Birmingham, Michigan
Knights of Columbus

Come Clean, Senator McCain!

Dear Senator McCain,

We know how you served your country.  You endured the harshest conditions as a P.O.W.  You stood up to years of deprivation and brutal treatment.  And, you came home to a hero’s welcome.  Your country needs you to be a hero once again, but first you must come clean.

 

Everyone knows the story of your heroic service.  There are also stories about the young naval officer who enjoyed having a ‘good time’ and was known to be a womanizer.  Finally, when you seemed ready to settle down, you married Carol, a beautiful young model who had divorced one of your navy buddies when she learned of his infidelity.  You adopted her two sons because they needed a responsible father, and then you and Carol were blessed when you had a daughter of your own. 

 

Soon, duty summoned you to Vietnam where your plane was shot down and you were held captive for five and one-half years.  When you were released, you limped off the plane as you brought your broken body home where you could finally receive needed medical attention. 

 

While you were gone, Carol cared for the children and rallied the country in support of you and your fellow POWs.  She, too, endured her own personal tragedy one Christmas Eve when her car skidded off the road and hit a telephone pole.  Her bones were broken and her body was mangled, but like you, her spirit was not broken.  Reconstructive surgeries helped restore her body to some semblance of normalcy.  All the while, she worried about your morale, so she insisted on keeping her own tragedy a secret from you.

 

When you returned home, you were held in high regard as the American Hero.  Women were drawn to your compelling charm. You began cheating on Carol.  You wanted to be a 25-year-old and she needed you to be 40.

 

Your infidelity reached beyond your personal life, impugning your navy values. Friends say you explained your behavior by saying this about Carol, “She’s not the same woman that I married.”  Were you talking about how her accident had physically changed her? Carol could have said the same about you, but she didn’t.

 

Then, you met 24-year-old Cindy and began a whirlwind courtship with her.  Your wife, Carol had no clue.  With the help of another one of your navy buddies, you filed for divorce in Florida where you lived. You were in a hurry because you applied for a marriage license before your divorce was even finalized.  The divorce process took only two months. Carol stood down and let it happen.  She did not take part – did not sign any of the papers.  She surely knew that the deck was stacked against her in the Florida divorce courts.  If she had objected, it wouldn’t have mattered anyway, because “no-fault” divorce in Florida, as in every other state, is an “automatic outcome” that is forcefully imposed by State officials upon anyone who resists.  The truth is finally emerging that that ‘no-fault’ divorce can be traced back to the Russia, where the objective was to undermine family and religion.  The outcome was always the same:  the State imposed the divorce and it was known as ‘Post Card Divorce’ because the other partner received a notice in the mail.

 

When Rev. Warren interviewed you at his Saddleback Church, you confessed, “The breakdown of my marriage is my greatest moral failing.”

 

Thank you for your for your courage.  But, after we confess, we must make amends.  This is about far more than your personal problem – your divorce from Carol.  It is about fidelity vs. brokenness, which is something you were forced to learn about in the prisoner camp.  You were able to remain faithful to your country then. We ask you to show your faithfulness once again.

You are now uniquely positioned to do something for the American family.  In 1906, Teddy Roosevelt used his bully pulpit in this way because he cared about the family.  You could confront this country’s darkest open secret.

 

Over the years you’ve become known as a maverick – a national leader who won’t tolerate corruption.  Senator McCain, you can show the character and leadership for which our nation hungers.

 

The presidential race is slipping out of your hands.  You could tip the scales with this issue. Why not finish what you started?  You’ve confessed your sins.  Now, make amends. 

 

We heard your public confession on TV and admire you for your courage.  This is the issue no one will touch, but your leadership could rally an amazing groundswell.  

Combining this issue with your faithfulness to “life begins at conception” you could win two voting blocks who are wavering:  ’independent’ women and Catholics. Your personal story turns some voters away, but they could be won over and truly be excited by this kind of leadership. 

You need to say more than simply being against same-sex marriage. Being for marriage and family in this way could really excite people – in the same way that your choice of Sarah Palin as your running mate did.  This issue could endear you to America’s families!