JULY 12, 2026

During this period of Ordinary Time, Christians will be reading at Sunday Mass from S. Paul’s letter to the Christians at Rome. We might remember that S. Paul had neither founded the Church at Rome nor had he yet had the occasion to visit. However, as he writes in his epistle, he “longs to be with them.” He writes the Epistle to the Romans to both introduce himself as well as to catechize them in significant matters of the faith.

The Epistle to the Romans is one of the most important documents in the Christian scriptures and is certainly one of the most misunderstood. Many Protestants, beginning with Martin Luther, gravitate to this epistle not recognizing the Jewish antecedents that make this one of the most Catholic of S. Paul’s epistles.

In this week’s Epistle, we find ourselves in the section concerning our salvation in Christ. Having introduced the concept of the first Adam bringing condemnation upon all mankind and the New Adam (Jesus Christ) having restored our relationship to the Father, he turns now to the practical implications of our being made members of the Body of Christ.

He begins this passage with a rhetorical question: What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? And to this he responds with an unambiguous “God forbid!” That is, we ought not to test the grace of God by continually asking His forgiveness through repeated willful disobedience. As the the Hebrews continually “murmured” against God in the wilderness, eventually God’s mercy was withdrawn and an entire generation failed to enter into the Promised Land.

The purpose of grace is to erase our past misdeeds as well as to fortify our will in helping us to resist future transgressions. For the grace of the sacraments to become truly effective, we must be receptive to that grace and not have any impediment by way of mortal sin. S. Paul then goes on to remind us of the efficacy of the Sacrament of Baptism. 

In the waters of Baptism, we enter into the death of Our Lord. The “old man” dies. That part of ourselves given over to the attractions of the world – the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life – is to buried in the waters of the deep. Then when we come out of the waters of Baptism, we rise with Christ out of the watery grave to newness of life. We are born again: the beginning of our new life in Christ.

Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. Admittedly, this is a difficult challenge. On the one hand, we are told of our victory over sin. But on the other, our daily experience suggests otherwise!

While it’s certain that we have this victory potentially, the challenge is to actualize this reality in our lives with increasing success. As G. K. Chesterton once quipped: “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.” To live the Christian life successfully is quite difficult and demands both courage and determination. It involves an act of the will: Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Once we begin to see ourselves as freed from our passions, and animated by the Spirit of God, then we will begin to act accordingly.

This requires the discipline of prayer, both corporate and individual. This is why attending Mass when offered is so important to our spiritual lives. And this is why a pattern of daily prayer is so crucial as well. Only as we plug into the Source of our being will we truly become what we were created to be from the beginning: children of our Heavenly Father.

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Democrats’ bizarre ‘we’re all going to hell’ moment

BY:          Billy Hallowell, The Washington Times (July 3, 2026).

Democrats have had some truly strange and telling moments when it comes to their handling of God and the Bible in recent years — and these past few weeks were no exception.

Case in point: Texas Democrats, who rallied at their state convention from June 25 to June 27, decided to show support for U.S. Senate candidate and state Rep. James Talarico in a deeply strange way, glossing over some of his bizarre biblical and cultural views.

At one point, the crowd bizarrely cheered with exuberance when one of their own proclaimed, “We’re all going to hell” — a comment made in solidarity with Mr. Talarico’s controversial flavor of Christianity.

The moment in question, which has been making the rounds on social media, took shape when Democratic Land Commissioner nominee Benjamin Flores urged attendees to rally behind Mr. Talarico and push back against conservative criticism.

“Next time they say that James is trans, we’re all trans,” Mr. Flores said during an impassioned speech. “When they say James is a gay, tofu-eating vegan, we’re all gay, tofu-eating vegans.”

And then he delivered the line that raised more than a few eyebrows: “And when they say James is going to hell, we’ll say we’re all going to hell.”

Before we get into the theological and political sentiment, let’s explore the context. Mr. Flores’ comments came after White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller jokingly referred to Mr. Talarico as the Democrats’ “first transgender Senate candidate” last month while appearing on Fox News.

While that explains the trans comment, the mention of hell is presumably tied to another recent event. During the Texas Republican convention last month, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick ignited a flurry of headlines when he said Mr. Talarico is “going to hell” over his views about the Bible.

“And let me tell you, that’s not a Bible I’ve ever read,” Mr. Patrick said of Mr. Talarico’s views. “I’ve never seen so much blasphemy from anyone running for office. Let me tell you what, I’m going to pray for that guy, because when he loses the Senate race, if he campaigns against God as he’s been doing, he’s going to hell for sure.”

These are certainly strong words, and it’s understandable why Mr. Flores hit back, though cheering over a proclamation that “we’re all going to hell” encompasses a flippancy and strangeness that is beyond the pale.

I’m sure Mr. Flores and the Democrats were being hyperbolic and quipping, but leftists have had a long line of issues when it comes to faith, and their collective theological understanding is often lacking at best — or diabolical at worst.

Though we shouldn’t be walking around definitively condemning people to hell, Mr. Flores and others would be smart to comprehend the strong, swift and negative reactions to Mr. Talarico’s theological claims.

The latest strangeness emerged in an unearthed clip from a 2021 interview during which Mr. Talarico said, “I always think of myself as a Christian who hates Christianity, right?”

He continued, “I always get drawn back into it because nowhere else, in no other political philosophy and no other economic theory do I find anything nearly as truly radical or revolutionary as the teachings of that barefoot rabbi.”

And these are hardly the only controversial views he’s espoused when it comes to Jesus.

Among other claims, Mr. Talarico has said Christ was a feminist, and the politician used Mary, Jesus’ mother, as an example to argue that her decision to consent after Gabriel said she would be with child is evidence that the Bible is somehow pro-choice.

“The Angel comes down and asks Mary if this is something she wants to do,” he told Joe Rogan, referring to abortion. “To me, that is an affirmation in one of our central stories that creation has to be done with consent.”

Mr. Talarico also has said “God is nonbinary” and reportedly expressed universalist ideologies, noting that “other religions of love point to the same truth” as Christianity.

The list goes on and on. While Mr. Flores and others are free to confront the political mudslinging, there’s clearly a theological problem at the core of many of these proclamations. At times, Mr. Talarico seems to reinvent Jesus and the Bible in his own image.

And this is a problem the Democratic Party continues to struggle with. As I’ve written, one of the most flummoxing and embarrassing moments in modern politics unfolded at the 2012 Democratic National Convention after God was axed from the party platform before liberals scrambled to change course.

But what we’re watching now is an attempt to redefine what it means to be a Christian and what it entails to believe the Bible — and believers ought to be smart and flee this bad theology. 

At the very least, the Democratic Party should have a greater respect for and understanding of God and these subjects than to openly cheer over the prospect of eternal damnation.

The slippery slope just keeps slipping. 

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Mike Huckabee is right: No United States of America without Jews

The far left and right do not know history

BY:          Everett Piper, The Washington Times (July 5, 2026).

Last month, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee caused a bit of a stir for saying the following: “One of the reasons that [the United States and Israel] are tied together is because it is upon the Jewish foundation that Christianity was formed, and upon the Jewish and Judeo-Christian foundation, Western civilization was formed. Without that foundation, there would not be an America. It is as simple as that.”

Of course, everyone on the horseshoe left and right lost their minds to the point of apoplexy. “How could anyone be this ignorant?” they shouted in unison. “Don’t these MAGA neanderthals know that our nation’s founding had nothing to do with religion and most assuredly had nothing to do with the Jews?”

How do we know who is right? Is it Mr. Huckabee or his detractors? If only someone had conducted peer-reviewed research we could point to, we could put this debate to rest.

Well, it turns out someone has.

In his book “America’s Prophet: How the Story of Moses Shaped America,” Bruce Feiler tells us that in 1973, two political scientists (Donald Lutz and Charles Hyneman) undertook a comprehensive survey of American political rhetoric during the Founding era. Their methodology included reading “everything published in America between 1760 and 1805.”

This herculean effort took “ten years and covered 15,000 documents, including 2,200 for which they recorded every reference cited.”

What did they discover?

Mr. Feiler summarizes it: “Thirty-four percent of all cited material in their research was from the Bible, compared with 22 percent for the Enlightenment writers and 9 percent for the classics. The Bible was cited four times as often as Montesquieu, ten times as often as Locke, and thirty times as often as Hobbes.”

That’s not all.

Even more specific was the fact that an overwhelming percentage of the biblical references came from one particular Old Testament book: the Book of Deuteronomy.

Why Deuteronomy?

Well, maybe we should let our Founding-era thought leaders speak for themselves. Here is just a sampling of what they had to say.

In 1788, Samuel Langdon, president of Harvard, argued that America should adopt the same form of government that God handed down to Moses on Sinai. “The Republic of the Israelites is an example to the American States,” he wrote. “The Jewish government was a perfect republic.”

Ezra Stiles, the president of Yale, agreed and added this: “God is now giving this land to us who in virtue of the ancient covenant are the Seed of Abraham. … The Lord freed us from Egypt by a mighty hand, by an outstretched arm, and by his awesome power, and by signs and portents. He brought us to this place and gave us this land flowing with milk and honey.”

These two statements from Messrs. Langdon and Stiles were far from anomalous. In fact, all nine of the first colleges founded on American soil before the revolution offered instruction in Hebrew. Yale’s seal depicted an open Bible with the Hebrew inscription Urim v’Thummim — rendered in the seal’s Latin motto as “Light and Truth.” The seals of Dartmouth and Columbia included Hebrew as well.

Even Harvard had a recitation in Hebrew in its annual commencement until 1817.

The evidence is overwhelming. The debt our Founders felt we owed to Israel and its model of government cannot be disputed, and this sentiment was not just from professors and preachers.

Take, for example, Thomas Paine, arguably the most secular and anti-religious of all the Founders, who explicitly cited the Jewish leaders Gideon, Samuel and David as he argued that the United States should sever ties with the British monarchy and adopt a republican form of government.

Then there is Benjamin Franklin. He proposed that the official seal of the new nation include an image of “Moses standing on the shore and extending his hand over the sea thereby causing the same to overwhelm Pharaoh who is sitting in an open chariot, [with] a crown on his head and a sword in his hand. Rays from a pillar of fire in the clouds reaching to Moses, to express that he acts by the command of Deity.”

Franklin also wanted the seal to read: “Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God.”

Thomas Jefferson agreed with Franklin, adding that the seal should include an “image of the children of Israel in the wilderness, led by a cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night.”

The list goes on. One could write a book on the topic (as indeed Mr. Feiler did), and the conclusion of the matter is clear: Mr. Huckabee is right. There would be no America without the Jews. “It’s as simple as that.”

GFK