Month: October 2016

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‘Coming Out Day’ Still Celebrated at Catholic Colleges

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men-kissing-in-church

A number of Catholic colleges and universities across the country are sponsoring or are allowing events on campus in the next week to mark “National Coming Out Day,” a day to celebrate “coming out as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (LGBTQ) or as an ally.” According to the LGBT activist group Human Rights Campaign, which actively works against the Catholic Church on issues of human sexuality, October 11 marks the 28th anniversary of the celebration.

“Coming out” refers to the phrase “coming out of the closet,” used to express when one publicly declares their attraction outober-events-georgetownto members of the same sex. These sexual attractions are referred to in our current culture in terms of “identities” that define an individual. “Coming Out Day” celebrations serve to lead persons to embrace and be proud of those “identities,” which are rooted in sexual attractions and lifestyles considered either disordered or immoral by the Church.

Same-sex attraction is not a sin, but is referred to as “disordered” and a “trial” for those experiencing those attractions in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The Church does teach that same-sex sexual activity is a mortal sin, as is all sexual activity outside the confines of marriage, as understood by the Church.

Despite the mandate of Catholic institutions of higher education to teach and lead students to the truth in Christ, many Catholic colleges continue to support “Coming Out Day” celebrations while completely avoiding events to help students understand Church teaching on sexuality, chastity and gender.

“Events like ‘Coming Out Day’ run the risk of equating a person’s identity with his or her sexual attractions, which, although they form a significant part of a person’s experience, are only one factor in the whole complex reality of what it means to be a human being,” said Father Philip Bochanski, newly appointed executive director of Courage International, in an interview with The Cardinal Newman Society last year. “Promoting events that reduce a person’s identity to his or her sexual attractions betrays our Catholic faith in the dignity of the human person, and does a disservice to those it claims to defend.”

‘Coming Out’ at Georgetown

Georgetown University, America’s oldest Catholic college, is sponsoring a “Coming Out Day” celebration along with events during the entire month of October leading students to celebrate and embrace LGBTQ “identities.” Last year the Newman Society reported on the expansion of the university’s “OUTober” events to focus more on “transgender” students who wish to be recognized as a gender that differs from their biological sex. This year the focus is on “honoring our histories” according to the university’s LGBTQ Resource Center website.

“Coming Out Day” in Red Square, Georgetown’s “free speech” zone, kicks off the OUTober events on October 7. “Come join us on our annual Coming Out Day, featuring a door through which students ‘come out’ as proud LGBTQ Hoyas and Allies,” the event description reads. “Be sure to pick up and wear your ‘I AM’ t-shirt throughout the day to promote visibility and awareness.”

 

Georgetown’s “I AM” campaign encourages students and faculty to tell their personal stories of embracing their same-sex attraction and gender identity confusion. Georgetown’s LGBTQ Resource Center produced a series of videos with students, faculty and staff giving their testimonies.

The listed partners for the OUTober events include Georgetown’s Campus Ministry and Department of Theology. None of the event descriptions include mention of Catholic teaching on human sexuality and chastity.

In their 2006 guidelines on ministering to those with same-sex attraction, the U.S. bishops stated: “Love and truth go together. … The Church cannot support organizations or individuals whose work contradicts, is ambiguous about, or neglects her teaching on sexuality.” The document reaffirmed a 1986 letter to bishops issued by the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith that stated: “[W]e wish to make it clear that departure from the Church’s teaching, or silence about it, in an effort to provide pastoral care is neither caring nor pastoral.”

‘Coming Out’ at Other Catholic Colleges

The student group PRIDE at the University of San Diego (USD) is scheduled to hold a “National Coming Out Day” celebration which aims to “encourage the USD community to ‘come out’ as LGBTQ and Ally and embrace our many identities.” Peter Marlow, associate vice president of university communications at USD, told the Newman Society that the event is not sponsored by the university and the university is committed to embodying the Church’s teachings on marriage and human sexuality. But the event is being promoted using university resources on the USD website.

Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wis., is celebrating “Coming Out Day” on October 11. The university’s LGBTQ+ Resource Center and the Center for Gender and Sexualities Studies developed a series of events to promote October as “LGBTQ+ History Month.”

The College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., is holding a “Coming Out Coffee House” on October 20, described as “An open mic space for LGBTQIA individuals to tell their coming out stories.”

Sponsored by the Gender and Sexuality Center, “National Coming Out Day” will be celebrated at the University of San Francisco with “a quick interactive game” and an “interactive collaborative art piece.” “There are so many words to describe the different identities around gender and sexuality within ourselves, but are they enough? Do we even know all what all these words mean?” the event description reads.

The student club PRIDE at Fordham University’s Rose Hill campus is commemorating “LGBT History Month” with a “Coming Out Week.” A representative of the university’s Office of Multicultural Affairs told the Newman Society that events during the week will include an opportunity to speak at a coffee shop, a door through which people can “come out” as LGBT or as allies, and a trivia night.

Saint Mary’s College in Moraga, Calif., which embraces the label of “one of the most LGBT friendly Catholic campuses in the country,” held a “Coming Out Week LGBTQIA Bingo” on October 3.

Fr. Bochanski told the Newman Society last year that silence from Catholic colleges on the issues of chastity and sexual morality not only confuses students “but makes it more difficult for them to hear and live by the truth of the Gospel, which is that chastity sets a person free to love authentically.”

“Catholic institutions should defend the rights and dignity of those who experience same-sex attractions by promoting the whole teaching of the Church: that these brothers and sisters of ours ought to be welcomed with respect and compassion, and ought to receive every support we can give them to live virtuous, chaste lives,” he said.

Complete Article HERE!

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B.C. bishops open to funeral services for assisted deaths, despite new guidelines

Physician-assisted death called a ‘grave sin’ that contradicts the teachings of the Catholic church

By Jon Hernandez

assisted-dying-palliative-care

Catholic priests in B.C. can still offer funeral services in physician-assisted deaths, despite new controversial guidelines that prohibit the act for bishops in Alberta and the N.W.T.

Guidelines issued by the Catholic Bishops of Alberta and the Northwest Territories suggest that priests should refuse funeral rites in physician-assisted deaths, which are declared a “grave sin” in the documents. But John Corriveau, the bishop for the Diocese of Nelson and the Okanagan, says providing funeral rites will be at the pastor’s discretion.

“We will not refuse funerals for people to everybody who has had assisted suicide,” he said on CBC’s Daybreak South, adding that priests do have compassion for instances where patients are undergoing extreme and unmanageable pain.

“If it’s a case that somebody in a moment of extreme pain made a choice — I’m sure, in many of these cases, we will be able to celebrate a funeral,” he said.

The bishop’s statements directly contradict the orders given by the Alberta/N.W.T. group, which clearly states “such a request for funeral rites must be gently but firmly denied” and refers to assisted-death as both “evil” and “morally unjustified”.

Physician-assisted death has been hotly contested by the Catholic Church, which instead calls on palliative care and pain management as effective tools for treating people with serious illnesses.

But in June 2016, the Canadian government approved physician-assisted death across the country under several conditions and limiting it to adults facing ‘foreseeable’ death and undergoing a “grievous and irremediable” illness.

According to Corriveau, under the federal conditions, it is likely that at least some pastors in B.C. will provide funeral services.

Complete Article HERE!

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Wounds of sexual abuse run deep, psychologist says

By Kathleen E. Carey

child sex abuse

Many psychologists contend there are long-term impacts of childhood sexual abuse. Some individuals are able to overcome them. Some do not.

Dr. Richard B. Gartner is a New York psychotherapist and psychoanalyst who specializes in treating men who are childhood sexual abuse survivors. He is the author of several books, including “Beyond Betrayal: Taking Charge of Your Life After Boyhood Sexual Abuse.”

He has testified in New York and in New Jersey about the need to change the statutes of limitations in sex abuse cases. He’s written about the prolonged effects the crime has on men, although he explained the variety of outcomes is as wide as the number of individuals impacted.

Childhood sexual abuse is a worldwide problem that garnered much focus here in the United States in 2002 when the Archdiocese of Boston faced national exposure for the abuse and concealment there. The Archdiocese of Philadelphia came under scrutiny as the result of two grand jury reports, one in 2005 and another in 2011, that linked more than 60 priests with abusing dozens of minors over decades. Since then, legislative efforts have emerged to deal with the crisis.

Lawmakers in Harrisburg are currently debating HB1947, which could extend the statute of limitations for victims to sue their assailants and eliminates the statute of limitations for criminal charges. Whether those changes should be retroactive, or just apply to new cases, is a key element in the debate.

Gartner said the impact of sexual abuse is profound on its victims.

“I think the most important thing to remember is the real trauma of sexual abuse is the betrayal,” Gartner said. “It’s easy to think about the violence, the physical pain, the premature and terrible way of introducing sexuality into a child’s life. Often, the abuse is done by someone the child knows. The child is betrayed by someone he has trusted implicitly.”

That betrayal can lead to relationship challenges later in life.

Since the adult trusted their abuser as a child “that often results in him or her distrusting relationships in the future, especially with authorities and with loved ones,” Gartner said.

He explained that difficulties with intimate partners can arise.

“They always see sexual situations as a power situation rather than a partnership,” Gartner said.

Masculine socialization and its myths – such as men are not victims – can prohibit the revelation of abuse until well into the adult years, the psychologist explained.

“To acknowledge victimization is to say, ‘I’m not really a man,’” Gartner said as a way of explaining what is often the perception.

He said male victims will justify the abuse to themselves with such explanations as, “I was the one who changed; or, it didn’t bother me; or, I’m just moving on; or, Nothing happened.”

The psychologist said the victim’s logic may seem unreasonable to an outsider.

“How he was 6 at the time but he should have stopped it, he was the seducer,” Gartner said.

Yet, internally, these reasonings maintain a characteristic that these men think is integral to their identity.

Complete amnesia, he has found, is relatively rare, although he said many men need to reframe from what actually occurred to them.

“If I was in charge of something,” he said they tell themselves, “it wasn’t abuse and it wasn’t traumatic and sexually, I’m in charge.”

He said one out of six men report having had unwanted direct sexual contact by the time they are 16 years old. That increases to one in four men if non-contact behavior such as someone exposing him or herself is included.

Gartner said men can put their emotions into a frozen state or rely on addictions to cope.

When faced with their abuse, victims are conflicted about sexuality.

“(Victims are) familiar with the idea that boys don’t want to reveal themselves as victims,” Gartner said. “(Abusers will) say, ‘You’re gay if you say anything.’”

Complicating the matter is that straight men wonder why they were chosen as victims and gay men can be rushed into that identification or decide that the abuse is what caused it, resulting in difficulties in developing positive self-identification.

“Abusers,” he added, “do often know the laws.”

Due to the myth that those abused as boys will inevitably grow up to abuse, many who have no thought of becoming a sexual predator worry they will, Gartner explained.

More than 80 percent of sexually abused boys never become adult perpetrators, although 80 percent of perpetrators were abused as children, he said.

Gartner provided a list of some common symptoms in adults sexually abused as children such as guilt, anxiety, depression, interpersonal isolation, shame, low self-esteem, self-destructive behavior, post-traumatic stress reactions, poor body imagery, sleep disturbance, nightmares, eating disorders, relational and or dysfunction and addictions like alcoholism, drug addiction, gambling and sexual obsession.

Trust issues are multiplied if the victim reports the abuse and that is dismissed.

“It compounds it terribly,” Gartner said. “The faith and trust of this person is further damaged.”

In addition, he said women can be predators, too, although they are often given lighter sentences based on attractiveness.

He said a 1990s evaluation of a non-clinical group estimated that 61 percent of those abused were victims of men, 29 percent by women and 11 percent by both.

A large societal perception, Gartner said, is if a boy is abused by an adult woman he is lucky.

Yet, the child is confounded, left asking himself, “Why am I so anxious about this?”

One treatment he has found to be particularly effective for sexually abused men is male-only support groups.

“They still believe that they were the only one this happened to,” Gartner said. “(Then,) they see other men functioning in life and dealing with this. It’s validating.”

When asked if survivors can heal, the psychologist unequivocally answered, “Yes.”

However, he explained that different people have different definitions of healing and individuals have varying methods of doing so.

“Some,” he said, “wind up in prison and have a whole different journey…”

However, Gartner added, “Certainly in my practice, I’ve known many men with time who’ve really gotten strengthened by taking a look at how they handled what they had handled.”

And, as a group, they may have more compassion.

“Research shows that men who have been abused are more empathic than ones who are not,” Gartner said.

House Bill 1947 – Report of the Philadelphia Grand Jury – 2005 by Vince Carey on Scribd

Complete Article HERE!

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Gay Catholics test Poland’s conservative church

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Gay Catholics test Poland’s conservative church

When gay and lesbian Catholics launched a campaign this month to ask for acceptance in the Polish church, the backlash was swift and uncompromising

Adopting the gesture of a handshake that worshippers make during mass, the “Sign of Peace” poster campaign shows one hand with a rainbow bracelet representing the fight for gay rights and the other with a rosary for prayers.

Affronted bishops issued a statement on September 14 instructing the faithful “not to participate in the campaign… because it waters down the explicit demands of the Gospel.”

The handshake sign of peace, they warned, was an “expression of acceptance for a person, but not of their sins, whatever they may be.”

Others have gone further, crudely labelling the campaigners “homo heretics.”

An editorial published in the widely-read conservative Gosc Niedzielny (Sunday Guest) Catholic weekly conflated the fight for equality with efforts to promote masturbation.

But campaigners vow they will not be deterred by hostile attitudes towards homosexuality in the conservative country, a bastion of Catholicism in an increasingly secular Europe.

“After a programme on a public TV channel, we received hundreds of emails, with some from the parents of LGBT children who said that up until now, they hadn’t dared to broach the subject with them,” activist Pawel Dobrowolski told AFP.

“Lay people, priests wrote to tell us that they were praying for us and I was warmly received at the church I attend.”

Dobrowolski also underlined the fact that Polish bishops have called on parishioners to treat LGBT people with “respect, openness and carry on dialogue in good faith.”

But opinion polls suggest deeper acceptance of homosexual couples will take time.

Seventy percent of Poles thought homosexual relations were unacceptable, the independent Warsaw-based CBOS institute found in a 2014 opinion poll, the most recent survey on the topic.

– ‘Invisible’ –

A year earlier, CBOS found that 77 percent of Poles opposed giving gay partnerships legal status and 87 percent said gay couples should not be able to adopt children.

Two-thirds of Poland’s 38 million citizens still identify themselves as practising Catholics and the institution continues to play a key social role in shaping attitudes.

The church hierarchy is currently trying to use its influence to introduce a near-total abortion ban, triggering widespread public opposition.

Four Polish Catholic publications appealing to the relatively small, progressive wing of the church, have officially backed the “Sign of Peace” campaign.

They including the Tygodnik Powszechny weekly, the Znak and Wiez monthlies and the Kontakt quarterly.

“The LGBT community wants to be accepted in the Church and even though it is excluded and invisible, it is looking for its place,” Misza Tomaszewski, a journalist with the Catholic Kontakt magazine that is among the campaign sponsors, told AFP.

Funding comes from billionaire philanthropist George Soros’s Open Society Institute.

On the znakpokoju.com campaign website, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Catholics speak in videos about their need for acceptance in the church.

Anna Strzalkowska, a lesbian and a devout Catholic, recalls a painful time when a priest to whom she confessed her love for woman told her she would do well to gouge out the eye or to cut off the hand causing her to sin.

Now raising a son with her wife Marta, who she married in Britain, Strzalkowska is confident the Catholic church will change its views.

“I’m certain that my love for my for my son isn’t sinful, I’m certain that my love for Marta isn’t sinful,” she said.

“I also really believe that soon the church will change its theology about our place in it.”

Complete Article HERE!

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Oops! The Catholic Bishops Forgot To Include War in Their List of Issues for Pro-Life Month!

File Under:  So much for the sanctity of life.

ravages-of-war

By Bob Waldrop

In the Catholic Church, October is “pro-life month” – an organized focus on the Church’s teaching that life should be respected from the moment of conception to the time of natural death. Yet, “time of natural death” notwithstanding, the issue of war doesn’t even get a sentence.

The letter of the Archbishop of New York City, His Eminence Timothy Cardinal Dolan, chairman of the bishops’ committee on Pro-Life Activities, introducing this year’s activities, says nothing about war. There are brochures available for free download – on mercy, abortion, suicide, euthanasia and end of life care, fertility treatment, adoption, and the Care of Creation. War however is not a topic of concern. The bishops suggest intercessions and bulletin notes for the month of October, but invite no one to pray about war. The 18 page catalog of pro-life resources has nothing about war or peace. The bishops’ website section on Pro-Life Activities, has 15 topics, but nothing about war and peace. They provide lots of free social media for posts and tweets, but again, we find not one mention of war.

This cannot be an accident. How can it be anything other than a deliberate decision to marginalize the issue of Catholic participation in the unjust wars of the United States government? Alas, this latest maneuver is consistent with the U.S. Catholic bishops’ attitudes since the wars on Afghanistan and Iraq.

When the United States attacked the people of Iraq in 2003, Pope John Paul II judged that to be an unjust war, a decision confirmed by then-Cardinal Ratzinger, who later became Pope Benedict. He famously stated that there was no justification for a preventive war in Catholic teaching.

The US bishops’ position was summarized in their November 2002 statement: “With the Holy See and bishops from the Middle East and around the world, we fear that resort to war, under present circumstances and in light of current public information, would not meet the strict conditions in Catholic teaching for overriding the strong presumption against the use of military force.”

It is fair to ask, in light of subsequent history: Did the US bishops actually believe what they and Pope John Paul II said about this war? What actions – if any – followed their words?

One bishop certainly believed the Pope. The Most Reverend Michael Botean, of the Eparchy of St. George in Canton for the Romanians, wrote to his people during Lent 2003, saying: “Therefore I, by the grace of God and the favor of the Apostolic See, Bishop of the Eparchy of St. George in Canton, must declare to you, my people, for the sake of your salvation as well as my own, that any direct participation and support of this war against the people of Iraq is objectively grave evil, a matter of mortal sin. Beyond a reasonable doubt this war is morally incompatible with the Person and Way of Jesus Christ. With moral certainty I say to you it does not meet even the minimal standards of the Catholic just war theory. Thus, any killing associated with it is unjustified and, in consequence, unequivocally murder. Direct participation in this war is the moral equivalent of direct participation in an abortion.” (Emphasis added.)

sanctity-of-life

That level of moral certitude was not shared by the rest of the Bishops. Their response, as we moved directly to war, can only be described as moral relativism:

  • “People of good will may differ on how to apply just war norms in particular cases, especially when events are moving rapidly and the facts are not altogether clear.” Nov. 2002.
  • “People of good will may apply ethical principles and come to different prudential judgments, depending upon their assessment of the facts at hand and other issues.” Sept. 2002
  • “War has serious consequences, so could the failure to act. People of good will may and do disagree on how to interpret just war teaching and how to apply just war norms to the controverted facts of this case. We understand and respect the difficult moral choices that must be made by our President and others who bear the responsibility of making these grave decisions involving our nation’s and the world’s security.” March 2003

The Most Rev. Edwin O’Brien, then Archbishop for the Military Services, on the Solemnity of the Annunciation, March 25, 2003, advised Catholic members of the US Armed Forces:

“Given the complexity of factors involved, many of which understandably remain confidential, it is altogether appropriate for members of our armed forces to presume the integrity of our leadership and its judgments and therefore to carry out their military duties in good conscience.”

Praising the war by their faint condemnation of it.

Subsequent to these statements, the U.S. Bishops did not distinguish themselves as peacemakers. Indeed, for most of the bishops, the Iraq War was not an issue of concern. It may fairly be said that they praised the war with their few and faint criticisms of it. In 2006, I researched the individual statements about Iraq of the bishops who are responsible for dioceses in the US I searched the website of every diocese, the website of the primary daily newspaper in the diocese, and did searches via Google on the bishops’ names for statements made between 2002 and 2006 on the subject of Iraq.

  • Only 39 diocesan bishops made public statements calling for prayers for the people of Iraq.
  • Twenty publicized or endorsed the various statements of the bishops’ conference on Iraq.
  • Twenty-eight provided some sort of catechesis about just war teaching.
  • One hundred forty-six of the bishops responsible for dioceses had nothing to say about Iraq.

I found all the bishops on the Internet talking about other issues –mostly about the clergy sexual abuse crisis – so the problem was not that the bishops were absent from the Internet. What they were absent from was public teaching about just and unjust war and a firm and unequivocal witness to the right to life of the peoples of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Sine poena nulla lex. (Without penalty, there is no law.)

The refusal of bishops to issue canonical declarations such as that of Bishop Botean, and their public embrace of moral relativism on this critical Gospel of Life issue, gave the government and the armed forces tacit ecclesiastical approval to wage an unjust war against the people of Iraq. Their unspoken message was clearly understood by everyone concerned:

“Do what you will to the people of Iraq, we will not use our canonical authority to stand in your way. We will thus make it easy and morally comfortable for you to kill hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom will be women and children.”

The Iraq War had an objective moral reality that was independent of any person’s perception of its morality. It was either a just war or it was an unjust war. It could not morally be”both-and.” While it is true that people can come to different moral conclusions about international issues, it is not true that all of those opinions are correct, nor are they morally equal. Unjust war at all times and under all circumstances is a moral evil on the part of the aggressor.

Here is how Bishop Botean constructed his argument on the moral equivalency of involvement with the Iraq war and murder:

  • Botean starts with – “The Church teaches that good ends do not justify the use of evil means. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states this principle succinctly: ‘One may never do evil so that good may result from it.’ (1789) .”
  • He writes – “Paragraph 2309 of the Catechism states: ‘The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy.’ Since war is about the mass infliction of death and suffering on children of God, Christians can enter into it and fight in it only if the war in question strictly meets all the criteria of the just war theory, and only if these same standards are likewise meticulously observed in the course of fighting the war. Vague, loose, freewheeling, conniving, relaxed interpretations of Catholic just war theory and its application are morally illegitimate because of the gravity of such a decision.”
  • He continues – “’The evaluation of these conditions of the just war theory for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good,’ states the Catechism. (2309) However, the nation-state is never the final arbiter or authority for the Catholic of what is moral or for what is good for the salvation of his or her soul. What is legal can be evil and often has been. Jesus Christ and his Church, not the state, are the ultimate informers of conscience for the Catholic. This is why the Church teaches as a norm of conscience the following: ‘If rulers were to enact unjust laws or take measures contrary to the moral order such arrangements would not be binding in conscience.’(Catechism 1903) She also warns ‘Blind obedience [to immoral laws] does not suffice to excuse those who carry them out’ (Catechism 2313). When a moral conflict arises between Church teaching and secular morality, when contradictory moral demands are made upon a Catholic’s conscience, he or she ‘must obey God rather than man’ (Acts 5:29).”

It is a tragedy of historic proportions that the United States Catholic Bishops turned a deaf ear to the cry of the people of Iraq for life and opted instead for moral relativism. Their behavior was so egregious that it seems to me to be material cooperation with the objective evil of unjust war.

The Fruits of Moral Cowardice

Since one-fourth of the US armed forces are Catholics, if the bishops had gone as far as Bishop Botean, the United States would have had difficulty waging its unjust war on Iraq. The impact of their moral relativism is all too evident. Millions of people throughout the Middle East hate us because someone that they knew and loved died in our war. We laid the foundation for the birth and success of terrorist groups such as ISIS. The Christian communities of Iraq and Syria have been devastated.

So if we look at what the bishops have not done in the past and are not doing today regarding the unjust wars of the United States, it’s hard to take them seriously when they speak about the “Gospel of Life.” Their own inactions and silences boldly proclaim that the United States Catholic Bishops don’t really believe that everyone has the right to life, from the moment of conception to the time of natural death. The people of Iraq never had that right in the eyes of our bishops. Too bad for them that they were in the way of the geopolitical maneuvers of the United States.

The bishops will no doubt protest “this is slander,” but let’s ask the people of Iraq what they think about these bishops’ “defense” of their right to life. This is a scandal as bad as the clergy sexual abuse tragedy, yet it flies under the radar. No one sees that the empire’s bishops are morally naked when it comes to war and peace.

One has to wonder when peace will get a chance with these bishops and they will defend all life, from the moment of conception, to the time of natural death, with the same intensity and vigor that they dedicate to raising funds for their annual diocesan appeal. In view of the lack of attention given to this issue by the bishops during their official “pro-life month,” the answer is evidently “don’t hold your breath.”

“Thus says the LORD regarding the prophets who lead my people astray; Who, when their teeth have something to bite, announce peace, But when one fails to put something in their mouth, proclaim war against him. Therefore you shall have night, not vision, darkness, not divination Then shall the seers be put to shame, and the diviners confounded; They shall cover their lips, all of them, because there is no answer from God. . . . Therefore, because of you, Zion shall be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem reduced to rubble, And the mount of the temple to a forest ridge.” Micah 3:5-7, 12

Complete Article HERE!