Catholics & Wolves 

Current news reports contain descriptions of the outrage of Catholic Bishops and Catholic laymen at the President’s dictate that all Catholic Institutions (Churches, hospitals, charities, children services, etc.) have one year to provide all employees free birth control and abortion drugs.  That these government mandates seriously violate the morality and teachings of the Catholic Church is of no matter.  That this monumental intrusion by government into the freedoms and conscience of Catholics is surely a precedent for future mandates for Catholics to perform same-sex marriages and to refrain from negative comments regarding abortion, same sex activities, euthanasia, birth control and other as yet undefined “rights” under threat of government harassment and prosecution is undoubted.  Just like Wolves!

Wolves?  What has all this sex and Catholics stuff got to do with wolves?  Answer: everything.  Anyone that has been watching the wolf debacle for 20 years would see what is happening to Catholics as simply a “rerun” of the original movie.

“Progressive” “Catholic” politicians (Kennedy, Pelosi, Biden, Dodd, Sebelius, Stupak, etc.) receive half or more of the Catholic votes in most elections.  The fact that these “progressives” were and are vocal public advocates for abortion, birth control, euthanasia and expanded same-sex civil rights was ignored as they were feted by Bishops, priests, and other “Catholic” progressives at fund-raisers, dinners, media events.  As the President, who has absolutely no ethic of life as told to me by a Chicago priest years ago, was being feted at Notre Dame University despite the local Bishop’s objections; “Catholic” nurse “nuns” were helping to write, publicize and act as press agents for the “Obamacare” federal law that provides the legal basis for the recent mandate that has so outraged Catholics.  All that mattered then and all that matters now is the high-sounding goal of “providing health care for all Americans”.  How could anyone be against that?

As Catholic Bishops and “progressive” Catholics are wondering what hit them and what they can do about it, perhaps they should study the history of the “Restoration of the Lower 48 States ‘Native’ Ecosystem Since 1969” paying special attention to the still-being-written chapter titled “Wolves”.  The similarities between naïve Catholics and busy rural Americans, like the similarities between anti-Catholic factions and animal “rights” radicals are chilling to say the least.

-          Well-meaning Americans cheered when The Endangered Species Act promised to “save” eagles, elephants, etceteras: just as well-meaning Catholics cheered the passage of Obamacare to provide health care to all.

-          The Endangered Species Act was written by political staffs to legalize “taking” private property without compensation; to authorize “saving not only endangered species but also endangered subspecies, races, populations, population segments, and distinct population segments; and to ultimately justify “restoring native species” anywhere the federal bureaucracy designates despite the Constitution, State governments, or local citizenry opposition.  Similarly Obamacare was written by political staffs and passed with little public input or understanding as to what it would authorize.  Simply from a Catholic perspective Obamacare not only makes abortion and birth control “health” matters under federal bureaucrats, it authorizes care-rationing by bureaucrats that is euthanasia by bureaucratic regulation.

-          The ESA, like Obamacare, was written by radical zealots with much broader agendas.  Just as the ESA was written to restrict logging and ranching, eliminate hunting and fishing, evacuate rural America, and absorb state and local authorities into federal bureaucracies: Obamacare was written to eradicate Catholic teachings regarding abortion, birth control, and same sex activities.  Obamacare does this by establishing the heretofore illegal precedent that the federal government can dictate Catholic activities under threat of fines, revocation of authorities (licenses), and imprisonment; just like the ESA.

-          Questions and objections during the drafting of the ESA and Obamacare were summarily dismissed and ridiculed.  In each instance time has shown that the drafters and enablers of the legislation were lying and were knowingly implementing much larger hidden agendas.

-          Drafters of the ESA and Obamacare have turned out to be radicals and activists for causes that were intentionally hidden.  Radical feminists, same-sex activists, abortion supporters, population controllers, anti-family activists, federal government growth supporters, and anti-Catholic-teaching radicals like women-priest supporters and “Catholics for Choice” all joined in the political chicanery to create Obamacare just as anti-hunters, anti-animal ownership, anti-animal use, anti-natural resource management, anti-Constitutional limited government, anti- rural American prosperity and lifestyle, and other such “anti’s” joined together in drafting and passing the ESA.

-          Obamacare “Catholics” like Biden, Pelosi, Stupak, and Sebelius joined “Catholic” nuns to soothe Catholic trepidations as they enabled passage of the bill just like the hunters, fishermen, loggers, ranchers, state government agencies et al that enabled passage of the ESA despite questions and misgivings.  While the publicly-proclaimed “Catholics” were treacherous, the ESA enablers were largely what Lenin would call “useful idiots”.

-          Catholic Bishops and progressive priests either ignored what was happening or naively enabled it in the name of “helping” the poor whether individuals wanted to or not.  Similarly the hunting and fishing organizations, state fish and wildlife agencies, and Universities all loudly proclaimed the “need” for the ESA and continue to justify the destruction and impoverishment it wreaks in the name of environmental “necessity” based on lies and disinformation.  In both instances “hunters” assured us that hunting would not be harmed, “experts” assured us that wolves never attack people just like nuns and “Catholic” big shots assured us that everything would work out in the end.

-          The ESA “takes” private property for its own use without compensation in direct contradiction of the Fifth Amendment prohibition “nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.” Similarly, Obamacare sets a government religious standard and destroys any moral qualms or conscientious objection that Catholics are entitled to under the First Amendment’s wording, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”.

This brings us to wolves –

The ESA and federal bureaucrats brought wolves back to the Lower 48 states despite the objections of local communities and all the harms (human safety, livestock losses, dog losses, rural economy losses, big game herd declines, etc.) that wolves create.  When enforced in tandem with Wilderness Declarations, purposeful cessation of natural resource management and use, and other recent environmental laws, wolves are not only the most recent tool  being used to vacate growing swaths of rural America, they are the most potent weapon going as they do everywhere creating all manner of chaos and death.  Obamacare and federal bureaucrats are not only making birth control, abortion, and euthanasia more widespread and available: when used in tandem with federal failure to enforce federal marriage statutes while advocating same sex marriage as a “civil right” and federal laws enabling teachers and others to take over control of children from parents not only Catholic teachings regarding parental duties are jeopardized, the very existence of the Catholic Church in the United States is threatened.

Wolves are an ultimate weapon for radicals seeking control over rural America and control over American lifestyles.  Self-serving federal bureaucrats and politicians in league with state bureaucrats, state politicians, and Universities draft and regulate the ESA (and other recent laws) to serve the ends of those factions that drafted and passed the ESA.

All-encompassing federal Health Care (Obamacare) is an ultimate weapon for radicals seeking a secular society that they control.  Like private property rights are to the ESA, the Catholic Church is to these health care radicals.  Destruction of the Catholic Church, like the destruction of private property rights is necessary if these radicals are to have their way and like the ESA, health care advocates are using federal health care for their own nefarious purposes.

Like hunters, fishermen, and other rural residents and Americans concerned with national health in all its dimensions that naively supported the ESA, Catholic Bishops and other Catholics that supported Obamacare are learning a life lesson the hard way. 

Even harder for Catholics to accept is what is to be learned from wolves.  While wolf havoc increases exponentially and wolves are spreading in the Lower 48 states like wildfire, there is no answer.  The ESA, like Obamacare, is virtually untouchable.  Who really opposes the ESA?  The answer is no one.  Who really opposes Obamacare based on what happens to Catholics?  The answer is only half of the Catholics (that voted against the current Administration) and the few bishops and quiet priests that were not cheerleaders for The Administration – add them all up and you haven’t got very many.  Like the few ranchers here and the few hunters there harmed by wolves that are cheered on by urban residents and their wild imaginings; the few Catholics willing to make abortion, birth control, euthanasia, same sex activities, and Constitutional Church Rights the important matters they truly are, are a minority with an uncertain future in a hostile world. 

Being against “saving” endangered species is just like “ignoring” health care for the poor.  Only callous, ignorant and uncooperative citizens could have such views.  Forcing rural Americans to live with all the unwanted dangers and costs of wolves is little different from forcing the Catholic Church to provide immoral services as directed at the behest of the powerful.  When the state is supreme, everything and everyone must bend as directed.

The lesson here goes far beyond Obamacare and the ESA.  The lesson for all Americans is what an honest look at what an untethered (Constitutionally) federal government really does when it purports embark on some crusade to make the world different.  The federal government, when tethered to fanatical causes can be every bit as evil and destructive as any other tyranny in history.  Whether it is endangering rural children with wolves or destroying private property and state’s rights for its own future power it simply uses such things as precedent to further ravage the citizenry it originally served.  Destroying Catholic institutions and intimidating Catholics is but another step in the march to subduing the American citizenry.

Somehow we let ourselves believe we could find benevolence in the maw of tyrants when all that is there are big teeth in a strong jaw designed to consume us.  Catholics, like naïve Americans rightly concerned about their environment years ago, swallowed a plastic bait they thought alive and now find themselves firmly hooked as they are pulled in.

May God help us all. 

Jim Beers

1 February 2012

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Jim Beers is a retired US Fish & Wildlife Service Wildlife Biologist,
Special Agent, Refuge Manager, Wetlands Biologist, and Congressional Fellow. He was stationed in North Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York City, and Washington DC.  He also served as a US Navy Line Officer in the western Pacific and on Adak, Alaska in the Aleutian Islands.  He has worked for the Utah Fish & Game, Minneapolis Police Department, and as a Security Supervisor in Washington, DC.  He testified three times before Congress; twice regarding the theft by the US Fish & Wildlife Service of $45 to 60 Million from State fish and wildlife funds and once in opposition to expanding Federal Invasive Species authority.  He resides in Eagan, Minnesota with his wife of many decades. 

Jim Beers is available to speak or for consulting.  You can receive future articles by sending a request with your e-mail address to:   jimbeers7@comcast.net