Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Rendering Unto Caesar ...
The Bulletin ^ | 4/21/2009 | Patrick J. Buchanan

Posted on 04/21/2009 5:08:31 AM PDT by IbJensen

At the request of the White House, Georgetown University covered up all the symbols in Gaston Hall, before the Great Man spoke, including IHS, the millennia-old monogram for the name of Jesus Christ.

St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus, had adopted the monogram in his seal and it became an emblem of the Jesuit order.

When it comes to rendering unto Caesar, Georgetown is not going to be outshone by Notre Dame, which stole a march by offering the nation’s avatar of abortion a doctorate of laws degree, honoris causa.

Actually, it is regrettable the IHS in Gaston Hall was not covered up in shame the first week of Lent. For that week, Georgetown’s feminist and homosexual clubs, such as GU Pride, put on a Gomorrah festival about alternative lifestyles called “Sex Positive Week.”

Monday, according to The Newman Club, featured a speaker for Black Rose, which “provides a forum for many different expressions of power in love and play. This can include dominance & submission, bondage and discipline, fetishism, cross-dressing, to name a few.”

Ash Wednesday’s talk was “Torn About Porn,” advertised as a “discussion about arguably alternative forms of pornography that are not supposed to be exploitative, but rather radical and empowering.”

Saturday’s talk was by a pornographic film director and was titled “Relationships Beyond Monogamy.”

At Loyola of Chicago that week, the Student Diversity and Cultural Affairs Office presented “Brother to Brother,” a film, the Newman Society reports, about “a homosexual African-American who is transported in time to cavort with the allegedly homosexual Langston Hughes.”

The movie is said to be part of “a semester-long ‘Color of Queer Film Series,’ sponsored by the university.”

At Catholic Seattle University, that first week of Lent was “Transgender Awareness Week,” featuring a “session on allegedly transgender Bible heroes and heroines and ‘Criss-Cross Day’ where students are encouraged to ‘come dressed for the day in your best gender-bending outfit.’”

This is surely anecdotal evidence to confirm Newsweek in the conclusion reached in its cover story of Holy Week, “The End of Christian America.”

Indeed, not only are many once-Catholic colleges and universities now wandering in what Pope Benedict XVI calls a “desert of godlessness,” Catholic belief and practice are not remotely what they were before Vatican II.

Where three-fourth of Catholics attended Mass weekly in the 1950s, today it is one-fourth. A third of all Catholics raised in the Faith have fallen away.

One in 10 American adults is a lapsed Catholic. Catholicism’s quarter of the population is maintained only by mass immigration and, secondarily, by conversions.

Self-identified Christians in the United States have fallen from 86 percent of the population in 1990 to 76 percent today. Those who say they have no religion have doubled as a share of the nation from 8 to 16 percent. Where 69 percent of Americans said we are a Christian country in 1990, only 62 percent say that today.

America is being systematically de-Christianized and secularized.

For the social, moral and cultural revolution of the 1960s, rooted in non- and anti-Christian beliefs and values, has captured the culture, and converted many of the young. Among Americans 18 to 29, a fourth profess to be atheist, agnostic or of no religious faith.

The figure is surely higher among the college young.

The second reason for the triumph of secularism is that it long ago captured the Supreme Court. Since the Everson decision of 1947, justices have expunged Christianity and all its books and symbols from the public square and public schools.

Voluntary prayer, the Ten Commandments, Bible reading, Christmas plays and carols, Nativity scenes, Easter vacation, before-game prayers, benedictions at graduations — all have been ordered terminated by unelected judges — against the will of the majority.

Abortion on demand, too, was imposed by judicial fiat.

Thus, as America ceases to be a Christian country, it is ceasing to be a democratic one.

Consider. In every referendum in 16 states, where homosexual marriage has been on the ballot, majorities ranging from 52 to 86 percent have voted to outlaw it as an absurdity and an abomination.

Yet, in Massachusetts, California and Iowa, unelected judges have imposed it, as they will in other states, regardless of what the people want or how the people vote. For secularism has become the established religion of the American state and judges are the high priests of the new order.

Yet, one wonders if they know what lies at the end of the road upon which they have set the nation.

For five decades, Americans resisted godless communism. If they come to realize they did so to save godless capitalism, or godless socialism, what happens to loyalty and love of country?

To love one’s country, said Edmund Burke, one’s country ought to be lovely. If this is not God’s country anymore, whose country is it?


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: atheistamerica; catholic; communistamerica; obamamania
If this is not God’s country anymore, whose country is it?

The narcissistic communist fool elected by the sheeple believes our nation and the world is his oyster.

(Careful. Don't choke on it!)

1 posted on 04/21/2009 5:08:32 AM PDT by IbJensen
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: IbJensen

IHS not a monogram for the name of the Savior - In Hoc Signo - In this sign - referring to the Cross. The words given to Emperor Constantine in the 4th Century.


2 posted on 04/21/2009 5:11:43 AM PDT by ConorMacNessa (HM/2 USN, 3/5 Marines, RVN 1969. St. Michael the Archangel defend us in battle!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: ConorMacNessa

According to the New Advent Dictionary:

IHS
A monogram of the name of Jesus Christ. From the third century the names of our Saviour are sometimes shortened, particularly in Christian inscriptions (IH and XP, for Jesus and Christus). In the next century the “sigla” (chi-rho) occurs not only as an abbreviation but also as a symbol. From the beginning, however, in Christian inscriptions the nomina sacra, or names of Jesus Christ, were shortened by contraction, thus IC and XC or IHS and XPS for Iesous Christos. These Greek monograms continued to be used in Latin during the Middle Ages. Eventually the right meaning was lost, and erroneous interpretation of IHS led to the faulty orthography “Jhesus”. In Latin the learned abbreviation IHC rarely occurs after the Carlovingian era. The monogram became more popular after the twelfth century when St. Bernard insisted much on devotion to the Holy Name of Jesus, and the fourteenth, when the founder of the Jesuati, Blessed John Colombini (d. 1367), usually wore it on his breast. Towards the close of the Middle Ages IHS became a symbol, quite like the chi-rho in the Constantinian period. Sometimes above the H appears a cross and underneath three nails, while the whole figure is surrounded by rays. IHS became the accepted iconographical characteristic of St. Vincent Ferrer (d. 1419) and of St. Bernardine of Siena (d. 1444). The latter holy missionary, at the end of his sermons, was wont to exhibit this monogram devoutly to his audience, for which some blamed him; he was even called before Martin V. St. Ignatius of Loyola adopted the monogram in his seal as general of the Society of Jesus (1541), and thus it became the emblem of his institute. IHS was sometimes wrongly understood as “Jesus Hominum (or Hierosolymae) Salvator”, i.e. Jesus, the Saviour of men (or of Jerusalem=Hierosolyma).


3 posted on 04/21/2009 5:14:07 AM PDT by trisham (Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: ConorMacNessa

Nit picking. Where’s the substance that indicates you bothered to read the column?


4 posted on 04/21/2009 5:16:52 AM PDT by IbJensen ("The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other peoples' money."Thatcher)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: IbJensen; cardinal4

The nuns told us that “IHS” meand “I Have Suffered.”


5 posted on 04/21/2009 5:24:03 AM PDT by Ax
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: IbJensen

America is being systematically de-Christianized and secularized.

This is intentional and totally planned, it is not simply "happening". Rahm Emmanuel is a prime agent.

Like the Soviet Union, God is the State and its Money, and cannot tolerate the Christian morality of the individual; which incidentally advocates Charity (by the individual) as opposed to Usury , Truth (by the individual) as opposed to Deceit , Forgiveness (by the individual as opposed to Revenge, Love (by the individual) as opposed to Atonement.

The Agents behind Barack Obama are far far far more sinister than even he himself. BO is simply a narcissistic front, albeit a good looking, well delivered, one. Like the Hollywood Zeroes.

"They" DO know what they are doing.

The amazing thing to me is the fecklessness of the ministers, the priests, the politicians, and even the Pope. Like the Buddhists in Burma, a passive joke, who cannot put their beliefs on the line. And "they" are counting on it.

6 posted on 04/21/2009 5:31:10 AM PDT by jnsun (The LEFT: The need to manipulate others because of nothing productive to offer)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: IbJensen
Those who quote this often forget the rest of the quote, and render unto G_d that which belongs to G_d
To a Liberal, it is heretical that there should be a division between Caesar and G_d, as the liberal today believes, as the Romans did that Caesar isG_d
7 posted on 04/21/2009 5:47:16 AM PDT by jmcenanly
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: IbJensen

I was completely disgusted by the university’s actions in this situation. Obviously, the covering up of religious symbols is a demonstration of the university’s abandonment of it’s Christian roots.


8 posted on 04/21/2009 6:15:20 AM PDT by MEGoody (Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MEGoody
Exactly like Notre Dame.

If they're ashamed of allegedly being a Roman Catholic University, then cease calling their institution one!

There are only a few truly Catholic Universities in America. The newest one is Ave Maria University in Southwest Florida.

9 posted on 04/21/2009 7:20:12 AM PDT by IbJensen ("The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other peoples' money."Thatcher)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: jnsun
The Agents behind Barack Obama are far far far more sinister than even he himself. BO is simply a narcissistic front...

You hit the nail on the smug, robot-appearing head!

10 posted on 04/21/2009 7:21:47 AM PDT by IbJensen ("The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other peoples' money."Thatcher)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson