The Church's Season of Lent

It's Lent 2010.. We reflect once again the Passion of Our Lord. To most of us Catholics we don't have to don sack-cloths or wear dourful faces. We are only asked by the Church to live with Christ and to remember His Passion. It is because of His Passion that we were redeemed -- the ransom of our hostage to sin has been paid for completely and totally by the death of Our Lord on the Cross. This Sunday's Gospel speaks of being held hostage by the demon. Nobody likes to dwell on this subject or topic -- it is unpleasant and totally out of sync in today's permissible and liberal society. What demon? He does not exist. Well. let us see. I will quote in toto a sermon by Fr. Francis Hunolt (circa 1890's) what the Gospel of today's is about. Please bear with me. _____________________________________________________ VOL. 5 - THE CHRISTIAN’S LAST END Sermon by Fr. Francis Hunolt THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT The Pain of Sense in Hell “He was casting out a devil.” St. Luke 11: 14. Unfortunate and worthy of pity is the man possessed by the devil! But more unfortunate is the man who on the last day is condemned to the eternal flames of hell, and given over body and soul to be tormented by legions of devils! Oh, foolish mortals, who make deliberate choice of those torments! After having portrayed the pains that rack the soul and mind in hell and drive them to madness, I shall now describe, in order to inspire sinners with a salutary fear, the torments that there tor­ture the body and its senses. The pains of the body in hell are general, and at the same time unceasing. The crosses and trials, pains and torments in this world, no matter how great or numerous they may be, are yet so divided and controlled that they never all attack the same man at the same time. Thus he who is poor is not at the same time sick; he who is sorrowful has not to suffer hunger and thirst; he who is persecuted and tormented by one man is not therefore made the object of general execration. A pain in the head or eye does not affect the hand or foot; lameness in the feet does not cause the chest to suffer; the body may be ill at ease, while the mind remains quite vigorous. There is always some part in a man that remains free from pain. But imagine a man who has to suffer all possible torments and pains in the highest degree in every member of his body inwardly and outwardly at the same time. Truly you have then the most miserable wretch, and he could not bear such torments for a moment without a miracle; every pain, when it reaches its greatest intensity, must either cease or put an end to the patient. But suppose one were enabled by a miracle to endure such an accumulation of torments for twenty, fifty, or a hundred years, and remain alive during the time; would we not then have a sketch of the state of the damned soul in hell? Not by any means; it would be a mere play or comedy in comparison. The reprobate would, so to speak, laugh at the idea of comparing those torments with what they have to endure in hell. “The worst sufferings one can have in this life,” says St. Augustine, “are not only small, but actually nothing when contrasted with the torments of the damned.” Why? Because all the pains and torments in the world are but instruments, set in motion by weak creatures; but in hell it is the almighty and angry, aveng­ing God who measures out chastisement to evil doers. If you should unhappily be condemned to hell for eternity, how will you fare? Now you are delighted with the beautiful light of the day, with the flowers, gardens, meadows, beautiful paint­ings, amusing plays; what a change and what a terrible tor­ment it will be for you when you shall be cast out into “the ex­terior darkness,” into an eternal night! Now you often sully yourselves with lustful glances; you take pleasure in contem­plating the beauty of others, in looking at impure objects, and in contemplation of vain apparel before the looking-glass; how fearful your punishment will be in hell, where you will behold nothing but shapes of deformity, into which all the bodies of the damned shall be transformed, and hideous spectres with which the demons shall terrify you forever! Now the eyes are delighted in company, and glisten with laughter and fun, nor do we think of shedding tears of repentance in order to wash out our sins; how that laughter shall be changed in that place of torments, in which, according to the words of our Lord, there shall be nothing but weeping and gnashing of teeth. The same weeping and gnashing of teeth shall be a torment for the ears. An ill-tuned instrument is intolerable to a skilled musician; a crying child in a room, women quarrelling in a house, the howling of a dog in the street, is a torment to many a sensitive individual. How intolerable it must be for the ears to have to listen to that hellish and hideous music made by the shrieks and howlings and curses and blasphemies of demons and lost souls, a music that shall last for eternity! One of the worst pains of sense is a foul stench. You hold your nose if a dead dog or other carrion is lying in the street as you pass by. Sometimes when graves are opened a foul effluvium rises from them, strong enough to cause the death of any one who happens to be present. It is looked on as one of the greatest cruelties of the tyrant Maxentius that he caused a living man to be bound to a decaying corpse, until the fetid ex­halations from it put an end to him. Ah, delicate worldlings! may God save you from hell! You cannot bear the smell of a smoking lamp; what will you do in that abyss in which, for all eternity, you will not have a breath of fresh air? Into which all the filth of the earth flows as to its common center? What will you do in that lake of sulphur in which the bodies of the reprobate shall seethe and boil, each one of them emitting such a fearful odor that it would be enough to fill the whole world with pestilence? And what of the pain of taste? Hunger and thirst cause such agony that mothers have been known, when urged by the frenzy of famine, to eat their own children. May God save you all from hell! you voluptuaries, whose god is your belly, who swear at the cook for over-salting the soup, who, before saying a word of prayer in the morning, must gratify the palate with food and drink! Woe to you! How are you to fare in hell? Hear what infallible Truth says: “They.... shall suffer hunger like dogs” (Ps. 48: 7); toads and adders shall be their food, not to satisfy their hunger, but to torture them all the more. This terrible hunger shall be accompanied by a burning thirst that shall last forever. The damned shall cry out: hear, all ye fountains, brooks, torrents, lakes, seas, even ye morasses and muddy pools, give us only one or two drops of all the waters that flow by unused and unclaimed! But the answer shall come from the hellish tormentors, the evil spirits: yes! We shall bring you a cooling drink at once! Molten lead and brass, the gall of serpents, the poison of dragons! Come, luxurious glut­tons and voluptuaries, this is the table to which you are invited, this the drink prepared for you! You may have heard people bad with fever crying out: for the love of God, give me a drink of water, and after having got it complaining of thirst just as loudly as before: Oh, what a terrible thirst I am suffering! Is there anything like it? And while the water is being brought to them they look at it eagerly, and, so to speak, drink it up with their eyes before it touches their lips. Now put together all the thirst, dryness, heat, and fever ever suffered by the sick, and all will be as nothing compared to the fearful thirst felt by even one of the reprobate in hell. Finally, with regard to the pain of touch, which is situated in all the senses and members of the whole body, suffice it to say that the damned live in everlasting fire, which rages both inside and outside them always. There is fire in the skin, in the flesh, in the eyes, in the ears, in the throat, in the hands and feet, in the nerves, in the marrow of the bones, in the whole body, so that it is like a glowing iron in the fire; and, as we have seen al­ready, that fire is raised miraculously above its nature, so that it tortures, not merely according to the properties of fire, but at the same time inflicts on the body all kinds of pains and tor­ments. The most terrible thing in those hellish agonies is that they are not only general, but also incessant, uninterrupted, contin­ual. The pains that one has to endure in this life have two properties that make them tolerable: they are either slight and trivial, and then are easily borne, or else they are violent, and their intensity in a short time makes weakened nature insensible to them, as we find to be the case with the sick, who, when near death, feel no more pain. And no matter how long a pain lasts, it is not always equally violent; it is interrupted or lessened oc­casionally. But in hell it is quite different; the damned soul will be tortured without hope of rest, for every moment of eter­nity it will suffer every imaginable kind of torment, without even a moment’s interruption. Father Abraham! cried out the rich glutton from hell, I have but one favor to ask of you. I am suffering terrible tortures in these flames; give me one drop of water, only as much as you can take up on the tip of your finger! Only one drop, so that at least while it is falling on my tongue I may feel a momentary alleviation! So will the lost soul cry out after a thousand, a thousand million, a thousand times a thousand million of years; but not even that much re­freshment will be given to it for all eternity. For all eternity without interruption the eyes shall be tormented by darkness and hideous spectres, the ears by howlings and curses, the smell by an intolerable stench, the taste by fearful hunger and thirst, the feeling by the fire in which the whole body is immersed; the damned soul shall be tortured without hope of rest forever and ever. Oh, unhappy people who are condemned to hell! Oh, eternal hell! is it possible that hell is the place in which they are buried who die in mortal sin? It is an article of faith, and sin­ners are well aware of it and believe it. And there are still sin­ners in the world? Alas! yes, and in countless numbers! And do they all wish to go to hell? Yes; for they are certain that the lives they lead will bring them thither. Such is the belief, such are the lives even of those who hate nothing so much as trouble and discomfort; who wish and desire nothing but an easy, comfortable, sensual, pleasant life; who place their happi­ness in the gratification of the eyes, ears, and tongue, in the pleasures of taste, smell, and touch; who tremble and shudder when one speaks to them of mortification of the senses, of self-denial, of penitential exercises; who, that they may devote themselves all the more freely to the gratification of their senses, laugh at the word of God, the Gospel truths, the warn­ings and menaces of the faith, God himself. Are those people going to hell to suffer for all eternity those terrible, general, unceasing pains and torments of that inextinguishable fire? Yes; they must make up their minds to that, for such is their belief; such must be the end of the lives they are leading. And why do they wish to go to hell? For the sake of that momentary, carnal pleasure in which they now take delight; for some temporal gain; for the love of a mortal creature; to gratify a passion; to be in harmony with the perverse world. And do they damn themselves for such trifles? Do they lose all for such worthless things? Do they choose hell, that terrible abyss of torments, for such a short-lived gain? Have those people completely lost their reason? And yet hell shall be filled with those fools! Have not we ourselves often been so foolish, when we committed mortal sin for the sake of such wretched things, and thereby made deliberate choice of hell-fire? Alas! what have we done? What is to become of us? If we descend in spirit into hell, we find there souls that committed the same sins that we have been guilty of, many who have committed far less sin than we; many, and in­deed many millions of angels who have sinned but once by a momentary thought. Oh, woe to us, then! for we have often deserved hell-fire by thought, word, and deed. Since the choice is left to us, let us select that which is easier. We can and will not burn forever in hell; therefore let us do penance and begin at once, for our time may be short and death may hurry us into hell. Let us detest our sins with a repentant heart above every other evil; acknowledge them in their mi­nutest details in confession; be sorry for them to the hour of our death, and from this moment lead a different life, a life of pen­ance, that by a timely amendment and contrition we may avoid the terrible, eternal pains of hell. Amen. Source: http://www.jmjsite.com/page335.html March 1, 2010 The SSPX Excommunications are Lifted!  * Document Repealing Excommunication of SSPX Bishops * Response by Bishop Bernard Fellay, Superior General of the Society of St. Pius X Saturday, January 24, 2009 Document repealing excommunications CONGREGATIO PRO EPISCOPIS By way of a letter of December 15, 2008 addressed to His Eminence Cardinal Dario Castrill'n Hoyos, President of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, Mons. Bernard Fellay, also in the name of the other three Bishops consecrated on June 30, 1988, requested anew the removal of the latae sententiae excommunication formally declared with the Decree of the Prefect of this Congregation on July 1, 1988. In the aforementioned letter, Mons. Fellay affirms, among other things: "We are always firmly determined in our will to remain Catholic and to place all our efforts at the service of the Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ, which is the Roman Catholic Church. We accept its teachings with filial animus. We believe firmly in the Primacy of Peter and in its prerogatives, and for this the current situation makes us suffer so much." His Holiness Benedict XVI - paternally sensitive to the spiritual unease manifested by the interested party due to the sanction of excommunication and faithful in the effort expressed by them in the aforementioned letter of not sparing any effort to deepen the necessary discussions with the Authority of the Holy See in the still open matters, so as to achieve shortly a full and satisfactory solution of the problem posed in the origin - decided to reconsider the canonical situation of Bishops Bernard Fellay, Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, Richard Williamson, and Alfonso de Galarreta, arisen with their episcopal consecration. With this act, it is desires to consolidate the reciprocal relations of confidence and to intensify and grant stability to the relationship of the Fraternity of Saint Pius X with this Apostolic See. This gift of peace, at the end of the Christmas celebrations, wishes also to be a sign to promote unity in the charity of the universal Church and to try to end the scandal of division. It is hoped that this step be followed by the prompt accomplishment of full communion with the Church of the entire Fraternity of Saint Pius X, thus testifying true fidelity and true recognition of the Magisterium and of the authority of the Pope with the proof of visible unity. Based in the faculty expressly granted to me by the Holy Father Benedict XVI, in virtue of the present Decree, I remit to Bishops Bernard Fellay, Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, Richard Williamson, and Alfonso de Galarreta the censure of latae sententiae excommunication declared by this Congregation on July 1, 1988, while I declare deprived of any juridical effect, from the present date, the Decree emanated at that date. Rome, from the Congregation for Bishops, January 21, 2009. Card. Giovanni Battista Re Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops Letter of the Superior General of the Priestly Society of Saint Pius X Dear faithful, As I announce in the attached press release, " the excommunication of the bishops consecrated by His Grace Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, on June 30, 1988, which had been declared by the Congregation for Bishops in a decree dated July 1, 1988, and which we had always contested, has been withdrawn by another decree mandated by Benedict XVI and issued by the same Congregation on January 21, 2009." It was the prayer intention I had entrusted to you in Lourdes, on the feast of Christ the King 2008. Your response exceeded our expectations, since one million seven hundred and three thousand rosaries were said to obtain through the intercession of Our Lady that an end be put to the opprobrium which, beyond the persons of the bishops of the Society, rested upon all those who were more or less attached to Tradition. Let us not forget to thank the Most Blessed Virgin who has inspired the Holy Father with this unilateral, benevolent, and courageous act to. Let us assure him of our fervent prayers. Thanks to this gesture, Catholics attached to Tradition throughout the world will no longer be unjustly stigmatized and condemned for having kept the Faith of their fathers. Catholic Tradition is no longer excommunicated. Though it never was in itself, It was often excommunicated and cruelly so in day to day events. It is just as the Tridentine Mass had never been abrogated in itself, as the Holy Father has happily recalled in the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum of July 7, 2007. The decree of January 21 quotes the letter dated December 15, 2008 to Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos in which I expressed our attachment "to the Church of Our Lord Jesus-Christ which is the Catholic Church," re-affirming there our acceptation of its two thousand year old teaching and our faith in the Primacy of Peter. I reminded him that we were suffering much from the present situation of the Church in which this teaching and this primacy were being held to scorn. And I added: "We are ready to write the Creed with our own blood, to sign the anti-modernist oath, the profession of faith of Pius IV, we accept and make our own all the councils up to the Second Vatican Council about which we express some reservations." In all this, we are convinced that we remain faithful to the line of conduct indicated by our founder, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, whose reputation we hope to soon see restored. Consequently, we wish to begin these "talks" -- which the decree acknowledges to be "necessary" -- about the doctrinal issues which are opposed to the Magisterium of all time. We cannot help noticing the unprecedented crisis which is shaking the Church today: crisis of vocations, crisis of religious practice, of catechism, of the reception of the sacraments ... Before us, Paul VI went so far as to say that "from some fissure the smoke of Satan had entered the Church", and he spoke of the "self-destruction of the Church". John Paul II did not hesitate to say that Catholicism in Europe was, as it were, in a state of "silent apostasy." Shortly before his election to the Throne of Peter, Benedict XVI compared the Church to a "boat taking in water on every side." Thus, during these discussions with the Roman authorities we want to examine the deep causes of the present situation, and by bringing the appropriate remedy, achieve a lasting restoration of the Church. Dear faithful, the Church is in the hands of her Mother, the Most Blessed Virgin Mary. In Her we place our confidence. We have asked from her the freedom of the Mass of all time everywhere and for all. We have asked from her the withdrawal of the decree of excommunications. In our prayers, we now ask from her the necessary doctrinal clarifications which confused souls so much need. Menzingen, January 24, 2009 +Bernard Fellay A Piece of Yellow Journalism NBC Williams Hits Palin With 'Abortion Clinic Bomber' Stereotype "Respected" NBC anchor, Brian Williams, throws the "terrorist" gauntlet:  the bombing of abortion clinics (or the killing of abortion practioners).  What a dishonest cad!  Anybody recall when the last abortion clinic was bombed?   Who actually is doing violence to whom?   In cahoot with the abortionists, clueless Williams is not aware that the womb is actually a sanctuary.   The abortionist is the terrorist. The OBAMA IDENTITY Obama's Abortion Extremism by Robert George Oct 14, 2008 Sen. Barack Obama's views on life issues ranging from abortion to embryonic stem cell research mark him as not merely a pro-choice politician, but rather as the most extreme pro-abortion candidate to have ever run on a major party ticket. http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/viewarticle.php?selectedarticle=2008.10.14_George_Robert_Obama's%20 Abortion%20Extremism.xml Obama and Infanticide By Robert George co-author: Yuval Levin October 16, 2008 Obama's latest excuse for opposing the Illinois Born-Alive Infants Protection Act is that the law was ''unnecessary'' because babies surviving abortions were already protected. It won't fly. http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/index.php The Most Extreme Pro-Abortion Presidential Candidate Ever Albert Mohler interviews Robert P. George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. http://townhall.com/columnists/AlbertMohler/2008/ THE PEOPLE AT THE CROSS, AND THE PEOPLE OF TODAY At Golgotha, in sight of the temple and city of Jerusalem, in the presence of two or three millions of Jews, who had come to the city from all lands, Jesus, the Son of God, hung upon the cross, an expiatory sacrifice for mankind burdened with all manner of sin. Near the cross of her dying Son stood Mary, His mother, filled with grief; by her side John, the beloved disciple, and kneeling at the foot of the cross almost insensible from sorrow and anguish, convulsively winding her arms around the wood of the cross, was Mary Magdalen, the penitent. On a cross at the right hand hung a penitent thief turned towards the Saviour; at the left hand on another cross groaned another criminal of impenitent heart, blaspheming the Holy One of Israel. Around the agonizing Saviour stood the Scribes and Pharisees, that hypocritical class of practiced miscreants, who hated and persecuted the innocent Lamb Jesus, even in death, who blink to all the predictions of the prophets whose books they had read, blind to the actual miracles which Jesus had wrought before their eyes to prove His divinity and His mission, filled with envy and hatred, reviled the dying Redeemer. At a distance stood a crowd of curious, indifferent people, who had come to Jerusalem to attend the feast of the Passover, and having heard of Jesus were present at His crucifixion. Not far from them the rough soldiers and executioners lay around, dividing among themselves the Saviour's clothes and casting lots for His seamless garment. This was the society that surrounded the Son of God and Redeemer of the world bleeding on the cross, and in their different phases they are types of the men of today. Only few were there who clung to the Saviour in unwavering faith and true love, ready to die with Him, and for Him. There were few who suffered all taunts and sneers all revilings and blasphemies, and departed not from the cross. Of these three were especially faithful, viz. Mary, John, and Magdalen. Those who like Mary and John are pure and innocent, or like Magdalen are weeping for their sins, who confess Jesus with their heart and lips, cling faithfully to Him, and permit neither persecution nor death to separate them from Him, are like the faithful three at the cross. As then by the cross, so today, the number of the faithful is small, and great is the number of those who, like the careless spectators of the crucifixion, are not decided enemies of Jesus crucified, nor yet His firm friends. They have indeed been baptized in the name of Jesus, they remain externally with the Catholic Church, which Christ founded, but they are sunk in lukewarmness, have no living faith, and are wavering to and fro like a reed between the world and Jesus. They fear the sneers of the so-called learned and enlightened, many of whom are well represented by the Scribes and Pharisees, who, having no faith in Christ themselves, bear in - their hearts only hatred and contempt for His Church; they shun the cross, because it is too heavy for their sensuality; they do not, it is true, commit public crimes, they prize highly a good name, occasionally observe the law of the Church, but are accessible to every error; their ears incline to every blasphemy against the religion of Jesus and His ministers, the priests. Instead of standing fearlessly and boldly for Christ, for the holy faith He has taught, and which the Church teaches, they turn away, are silent, even go with the Church's enemies that they may not be sneered at. They are neither hot, nor cold, so that the words of the Scriptures are verifled in them: Because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold, nor hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of my mouth. (Apoc. III. 16.) The Lord casts away from Him these lukewarm, indifferent Christians, as nauseous saliva, and leaves them to their destruction. The true Pharisees of our day are those who purposely close their eyes to the light of truth, who have put aside faith in Jesus, and are no longer disposed to receive instruction. Their pride, their egotism has blinded them, with their poor reason they wish to understand the mysteries of the Almighty, with their weak intellect to fathom His ways, even seek to be equal to God; they deny every revealed truth, they deny the existence of heaven and hell, they propose to live like the animals, without God, — but their end is, ruin! Few of them, having seen their error, as the thief on the cross at the right hand of Jesus, turn repentingly to the Redeemer; obdurate as the robber and murderer at His left, the Pharisees of our day cease not to blaspheme the Crucified, and to revile His holy Church. These are assisted by the apostates and unbelievers, who, like the soldiers and executioners, divide among themselves His clothes, and cast lots for His seamless garment. Those clothes which the soldiers divided among themselves, are the truths which the apostates and heretics yet retain after their apostacy from the Church. They have divided these truths, for they have separated themselves into thousands of sects, and possess only portions of the one truth, which Jesus has laid down in. His Church, whole and complete. “Upon my vesture they have cast lots.” This seamless vesture of Christ is His holy Church that cannot be separated or divided, she is one, and must remain one to the end of time. Concerning this one true Church, the sects all quarrel, all want to be the true Church without considering that, as but one soldier, by the lots, received Christ's seamless garment, so only one association of men can be the true Church, and that is the association which Christ has chosen. Thus we find at the cross on Golgotha the different classes of people of our day represented, namely, the pure and innocent; the repenting sinners, firm adherents of Jesus and His teachings; as also the lukewarm, wavering, nominal Christians; obdurate heretics, professed infidels and apostates. So today mankind is divided into like parties. To which party do you belong, O Christian soul? To which do you wish to belong? Choose! The time of the division is near. The Lord already holds in His hand the winnowing shovel to clear His floor. If you are not a firm adherent of Jesus and His Church, in the storm that is gathering you will be blown like chaff. If you remain with the small group at the cross, in persevering courage, you will stand firm, and on the day when the cross shall appear in the clouds of heaven, you, with Mary, the mother of the faithful, with John and with Magdalen, will triumph forever, as a victorious knight of the cross. Decide! -- Fr. Leonard Goffine From Catholic Conservation Motu Proprio Implemented No more permission needed for Latin Mass, Cardinal says Rome, Sep. 14, 2007 (CWNews.com) With the formal implementation of Summorum Pontificum, the Pope's motu proprio providing wider access to the 1962 Roman Missal, diocesan priests do not need permission to celebrate the Latin Mass, a top Vatican official has stated. Cardinal Dario Castrillon-Hoyos-- the president of the Ecclesia Dei commission, which supervises Vatican outreach to traditionalist Catholics-- says that "from this point, priests can decide to celebrate the Mass using the old rite, without permission from the Holy See or the bishop." In an interview with Vatican Radio on September 13, broadcast just before the motu proprio officially took effect, Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos explained that Pope Benedict's motu proprio affirms the right of any priest to use the "extraordinary form" of the Latin liturgy. "It is, therefore, unecessary to ask for any other permission," he said. Some diocesan bishops have cautioned their priests against using the 1962 Missal without explicit permission from the diocese. But the president of the Ecclesia Dei commission-- which would hear any appeals regarding the new liturgical rules-- contradicted that notion in his Vatican Radio appearance. While affirming the bishop's authority to resolve any liturgical conflicts within his diocese, the Colombian cardinal said that the bishop should exercise that power "without negating the right that the Pope has given to the entire Church." Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos said that the motu proprio involves "no big change" in the liturgy of the Roman Church, since the older liturgy was never banned. Vatican II affirmed the freedoms of the faithful, he said, and one such freedom, which Pope Benedict has now confirmed, was access to the older liturgical form. "Nothing is imposed on anyone" by Summorum Pontificum, the cardinal said. In allowing for greater use of the old Missal, he explained, Pope Benedict is merely "opening a possibility to the faithful who request it." Or as it says on the counter to the left of this post, 0 days, 0 hours, 0 minutes, 0 seconds. No more obstructions from Bishops please! Such obstructions divide rather than unite the Church.  Abortion is Back -- in 2008 by Patrick J. Buchanan Partial birth abortion is a grisly and revolting procedure. An unborn baby is brought halfway out of the birth canal, then has scissors rammed into its skull and its brains sucked out for easier passage. Sen. Pat Moynihan called it "infanticide." Seventeen Senate Democrats defied the feminist fanatics to vote to outlaw it. Now the Supreme Court, five to four, agrees that outlawing this barbaric method of aborting an unborn child does not interfere with what has been for 34 years a woman's constitutional right to rid herself of an unwanted child. This is being hailed as a victory for President Bush and the pro-life community. And it is, though outlawing the procedure only means that if a woman, late in her pregnancy, wishes to be rid of her unborn baby, she and her abortionist now have to find a nicer way to kill it. The partial birth abortion ban is a little like the state outlawing the beheading of innocent people, while approving of their execution by more humane means. While the ban is most welcome, it remains but a limited victory for those who believe in the sanctity of all human life. Politically, however, the court decision is portentous, and bad news for Democrats in 2008. For several reasons. As Robert Novak reports, a 2006 Fox News poll found that the nation, by 61 percent to 28 percent, favored outlawing partial birth abortion. Yet not only did all the leading Democratic candidates for president vote to keep the horrific procedure legal, all denounced the Supreme Court for upholding the law that bans it. To pander to the social radicals who vote in Democratic primaries, Hillary, Barack Obama and John Edwards all paddled far outside the American mainstream. Consider the latest poll in the pro-choice vs. pro-life debate. According to Sunday's New York Times, 23 percent of Americans want all abortions outlawed. Another 41 percent believe there should be greater restrictions on abortion. Thus, 64 percent of all Americans, almost two-thirds, feel abortion laws are too liberal already and want more restrictive laws. Among young voters 18 to 29, 20 percent want abortion outlawed. Fifty percent want greater restrictions. Thus, 70 percent of young people want more protections for the unborn, while Hillary, Barack and Edwards all want none. Look for Right to Life groups to run ads linking the Democratic nominee to this barbaric and now criminal procedure, which even the high court agrees can be treated as a felony, justifying two years in the penitentiary for any abortionist who performs it. If the Democratic presidential nominee can be credibly portrayed -- in Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Ohio or Pennsylvania -- as seeking the return of this pagan practice, it could be decisive. Also, the five-to-four decision, with Justice Anthony Kennedy in the majority, indicates the "health of the mother" no longer trumps all other arguments in the debate. Even more crucial, it puts the Right to Life movement within one vote of overturning Roe. While neither of the Bush II justices, John Roberts or Sam Alito, has specified whether he would vote to overturn Roe, most observers believe that, given the right case, they will drop Roe into the same dumpster with Dred Scott. With Sandra Day O'Connor gone, the four-to-four liberal-conservative split on the court, with Kennedy as the decider, also means the composition of the court will again be a major issue in 2008. And, again, this is to the advantage of the Republicans. For when the issue is framed as to whether voters prefer justices to be strict constructionists of the Constitution or liberal activists, Republicans win. Antonin Scalia gets you more votes than Ruth Bader Ginsberg. The court decision aids Republicans in another way. While the party is increasingly divided on Iraq, free trade and immigration, on the issue of new justices in the tradition of Scalia, Thomas, Alito and Roberts, there is unanimity. It was not the Democratic left but the Republican right that reunited to sink Harriet Miers. The Republican candidate least served by the Supreme Court decision, though he welcomed it, is Giuliani. Until lately, Rudy has been 100 percent pro-choice on abortion, even opposing the ban on partial birth. While he is committed now to appointing Justices like Scalia, he will be hard pressed on whether he wishes to see Roe overturned and whether he would use tax dollars to fund abortion. Moreover, as a pro-choice Catholic, Rudy faces possible censure by the hierarchy of his church, as did John Kerry. And this time, the indulgent Cardinal McCarrick is gone from Washington, and Cardinal Egan may be gone from New York by November 2008. With last week's decision, the Roberts court has put the life issue front and center in the politics of 2008, and it is hard to see how this is not bad news for the Democrats. The only worse news would be for George Bush to get the chance to name a third justice -- to fill one of the four liberal seats. That would set the cat down among the pigeons.

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