Catholics were arrested for praying the Rosary . . . on a Catholic Campus

By Susan Fox

“I couldn't believe what was happening. Catholics were being arrested for praying the Rosary and holding Silent No More signs on a Catholic campus. It was surreal. Had my adrenaline not been pumping I would have burst into tears at the sight of it. It was then that Jane and I decided we could not leave the campus. We could not possibly leave knowing this was happening. It was necessary to stay and witness to the absurdity of it all.” (Laura Rohling, Catholic wife, mother and pro-life protester at Notre Dame University on May 17, who was among those faithful arrested that fateful day.)

My little son looked admiringly at Seattle University, a Jesuit-run “Catholic” University. “Is that where you went to college Mom?”

“Yes, James.”

“I want to go there too.”

Without thinking, I said, “Oh dear God, no James. It’s not Catholic anymore.”

He was really too young at the time to remember the incident, I could have just said something like “Oh?”

But I was tempted by the truth. Now I have read a similar testament from Laura Rohling. She is a Catholic wife and mother, who grew up with and loved the “Catholic” Notre Dame University. She hoped someday her children would go there. Then she went to pray at the school on May 17, the day the most pro-abortion American president in U.S. history, Barack Obama, received an award from the school and spoke at its commencement.

It was also the day that Laura was arrested at Notre Dame University for praying the Rosary. God bless her. You can read her story at Catholic Online http://www.catholic.org/politics/story.php?id=33713

My husband says I should explain to you that the horror of allowing Barack Obama to speak at Notre Dame was not because we wish to demonize the man. In fact, I pray for him and sincerely hope for his conversion. But 80 U.S. bishops opposed his appearance at this so-called “Catholic” University because he is using taxpayer money to pay for the killing of innocent human beings both here and abroad. He has reversed the Mexico City Policy of President Reagan and President Bush, which prevented U.S. taxpayer money from being used for abortion abroad. I know this policy worked because when I was lobbying for the pro-life cause at the United Nations during the Bush Administration, the representative from Jordan complained to me personally that his country wasn’t getting any more money from the U.S. for contraception like they did under President Clinton. You can bet they are getting it now.

Why should we pay for Jordan’s contraception? I explained to the representative from Jordan that Natural Planning was free. “No money, no doctor, just couples teaching other couples the method,” I said. And, yes, I can attest first hand that it works. That was his first shocked question.

Barach Obama also has supported embryonic stem cell research. He also wants to change President Bush’s conscience clauses, which protect American doctors and pharmacists from having to take action to end a human life. It is getting to the point that in order to practice medicine or be a pharmacist, one will have to flush his conscience down the toilet.

This means as a Catholic, I will be unable to get medical care except from people who are willing to commit murder thanks to Barack Obama. And I’m sure some day I will be one of the people they mercifully try to terminate as I am chronically ill.

Shades of Soylent Green! This is the 1973 science fiction movie about a time in the future when food is scarce and people are encouraged to commit suicide. Then they are turned into Soylent Green – the processed food that everybody eats. The secret is announced at the end of the film by one hysterical character: “Soylent Green is people! We've got to stop them somehow!”

Too late! Already two states – Washington and Oregon – have legalized euthanasia. Also the Stimulus Package signed by President Obama creates a government bureaucracy, whose job will be collect all our medical records into one vast warehouse, and then make decisions about who shall receive medical care and who shall not. Doctors who don’t go along with the government will be penalized financially. Barack Obama is the only U.S. Senator out of 100 who said he regrets his decision to vote to save the handicapped Terry Schiavo from a painful death by starvation. The courts murdered her anyway. But at least the Congress and Senate tried to stop it. Barack Obama regrets his efforts to save her.

So inviting Barack Obama to speak at Notre Dame University was a very un-Catholic thing to do. I read in the National Catholic Register that an infant cried during the president’s speech, and this was the only witness for the unborn allowed to stay for the commencement ceremony. May God forgive the University’s leaders.

I went to Seattle University in the early 1970s. I went there because they had daily Mass and I could see Christ walking its halls. But already in 1971, some of my more devout lay professors were leaving because of the change in the school’s policies.

I remember my history professor, Dr. Olsen, teaching me about the similarity between the fall of Rome and the fall of the United States. He could see it coming even in 1971. Funny, homeschooling James with Warren H. Carroll’s “The Founding of Christendom” in 2005, I taught my son the same thing. Roman citizenship was so highly valued because of the rights it bestowed on people that whole populations fought for the right to be Roman. I remembered that last week, when Chinese and Korean students at my naturopath’s office came in to treat me for mercury poisoning. These beautiful young people didn’t plan to return to China or Korea after their education. Why? U.S. laws based on natural law have been fairly enforced for two centuries. We've had the right to life, free speech, worship, the right to carry guns and if needed a trial by a jury of our peers. Marriage has been between one man and one woman. This has created one of the most prosperous nations in the world. It's no coincidence that that much vaunted prosperity is deserting us now.

But Rome fell because gradually over time the guarantees of its rule of law were eroded into dictatorship. I made James think about how the same thing was happening here. The examples are too numerous to go into here, but just think: Roe v. Wade violates the U.S. Constitution’s right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” for all. And after that, numerous Supreme Court decisions cite European law -- not the American Constitution. And in fact, the difference between a Democrat appointing a Supreme Court Judge and a Republican doing the same thing is the difference between a justice who thinks the law should be whatever he or she feels it should be and a justice who wants to fundamentally uphold the rule of law, the American Constitution, regardless of what he thinks. The American Constitution guarantees our unborn children the right to life. Have your children even read that document? Do they know the safety created by that very Constitution?

When people were arrested for peacefully saying the Rosary at Notre Dame, their rights were clearly abrogated.

So I learned that in the 1970s at Seattle University. But in the 1990s when I tried to start the Legion of Mary in the same University, we were informed by Campus ministry that the only way we could have a room to meet was if we promised never to speak about the Catholic faith on the “Catholic” campus outside the room we were to meet! The Legion of Mary is an excellent Catholic organization faithful to the Church with the charisma of evangelization.

Attention Catholic parents and alumni, it’s time to rethink where we are sending our kids for college and where we are putting our charitable donations. There may be a secular glamor associated with degrees from Notre Dame University, but if you win the world and lose your child’s soul, is it worth it?